The Moon Cat's Cradle: Archenemy
by Elizabeth Athineu
Summary: Now that Dwight can focus more on understanding what he is and where the horrors of vampiricism began, new revelations about his and Ceridwen's dark exsistances are rising against them in the form of foes beyond either's comprehension.
1. The Cellar and the Mystery

**Chapter 1: The Cellar and the Mystery**

Ceridwen looked out the window of the large mansion sighing softly. It had taken Dwight three months to recover entirely from their first adventure together. So far, the young vampire had shown little resistance to the reformists around him. Or at least less than when he first arrived at the mansion. Dwight had spent nearly seventy years as a wandering vampire, piloting himself up and down the east coast until he met his match in the form of a seasoned and rather seedy tabloid reporter. After a nasty confrontation, the reporter (Richard Dees) had taken it upon himself to make sure that the carnage he had witnessed would cease. He had come accross a reformist close to Ceridwen purely by happenstance, but Ceridwen preferred to call it divine intervention since she didn't believe in flimsy things like happenstance. Dwight had been promptly caught, subdued, tagged, and brought to the group of reformists at the mansion here in Maine. Ceridwen was head of the team and, despite her own struggle with feline lycanthropy, was doing more for the young man in a few months than it seemed his tutors and doctors had in his youth. Dwight had been afflicted with polio in his early childhood, but thanks to doting and wealthy parents, had overcome it. Ceridwen found this story not only remarkable, but a sign that Dwight was meant for great things and should be spared at all costs. Dwight had risked life, limb, and his precious plane Lenore to save Ceridwen those three months ago. She stared out the window as rain pelted against the panes from the darkened sky. The only lights that could be seen this evening came from the frequent sparks of lightning. She frowned. Storms seemed to set Dwight on edge after what had happened during the last one. She couldn't blame him, she herself wasn't fond of rain at all.

A sudden crash from the other side of the mansion caught Ceridwen's attention. She frowned and sniffed carefully. Ceridwen had hated her lycanthropy almost as much as Dwight had hated his vampiricism, but both still found their physical properties quite useful from time to time. She listened, keeping her breathing as still as possible. She could hear everyone else in the mansion getting ready for the evening; the three medics, the four other reformists, and Jeremiah who was both her personal assistant and adopted brother. Dwight was settled in the library from the sounds of it. He was currently trying to drown out any tension from the storm with a large volume of New England Poetry Rediscovered and heavy breathing. Ceridwen comforted herself with the knowledge that he seemed to be handling the fear by himself for now. Jeremiah, or rather Jeremy, was in the downstairs livingroom on the phone to his father, arguing about who was a better musician in the early fifteen hundreds. The four reformists were discussing some of Ceridwen's research and the three medics were going over their supplies. This didn't seem connected to the noise Ceridwen had heard earlier at all. She frowned and headed towards the other side of the house. As she opened the door, Dwight met her face to face. Ceridwen let out a small cry and stumbled backwards. Dwight quickly reached out his hand and caught the girl in mid-fall. He lifted her gently back to standing and looked over her once.

"Thank you for catching me, but next time alert me to your presence," Ceridwen breathed as she slowed her heartrate. "I thought I heard you were in the library."

"I was. I heard a noise, did you?" he asked looking back down the hall.

"Yes, but I don't think it was anything to worry about. It just sounded like something fell, that's all," she reassured. "There's no cause for alarm. You go on back to the library and..."

"Shh," Dwight suddenly commanded. Ceridwen looked up at him in confusion. Having been protected from her lycan form from the time she was a young child, Ceridwen did not have the fine tuned abilities that Dwight did. She found it both useful and frustrating that he could make up easily for what she lacked most of the time. Dwight narrowed his gaze down the hall. "It's an animal. Don't you smell it?"

"What kind of animal?" Ceridwen asked feeling her muscles tense. Now that Dwight had brought her attention to it, Ceridwen _could_ detect the presence of an animal... a cat to be exact. She growled softly at the scent. Dwight turned and looked at her in shock. Ceridwen moved past him, trying to keep herself under as much control as possible. Ceridwen gave a small roar as her pupils shifted into small slits. She darted forward, following the sound and the scent carefully. She growled softly as she hurried towards the farthest part of the house and into the basement. Dwight breathed deeply and hurried after her. Ceridwen stopped dead in front of a door.

"What is it?" he asked softly.

"A female," Ceridwen replied softly.


	2. The Men's Club

Chapter 2: The Men's Club

Even this lower part of the mansion seemed to be without any blemish of dust whatsoever. He wondered how Ceridwen was keeping the mansion so spotless without servants, she really was amazing. He shook that away from his mind. It seemed that everytime he concentrated on Ceridwen for even a brief moment, he would begin to feel something like sisterly affection. While Dwight had never had a sister in his youth, he had in fact had a young cousin that he adored as a sister before losing her to the polio that had nearly taken him. He missed her terribly and it was as if he could feel her presence in Ceridwen. In some small way that became a comfort. He and Ceridwen arrived at a door that had obviously been out of comission for a little over a decade. Dwight frowned and looked carefully at the lock on the door. He smiled and leaned forward, blowing the dust fully away from it. Ceridwen took a step backwards and looked up at the large, rounded, oak door. This must have led to something as special as the wine cellar. Being a full t-totaller, Ceridwen had never bothered to check for such a thing, which really would have been something that any other resident of such a dwelling would have sought out first if for nothing else than to see what kind of taste the previous denizens had. Dwight reached forward, but slid his hand past the lock. A small piece of one of the woodboards moved inward. Dwight's hand was now enveloped to the wrist in the door and a nostalgic smile was on his ageless face. Ceridwen continued to stare at him in amazement. He turned his hand one slight twist to the left and the door clicked, opening a fraction as a small cloud of dust flew out of the facing. Ceridwen turned her head and coughed. Dwight lifted his jacket in front of her protectively. This was simply a gesture of a gentleman, not due to the fact that Dwight knew about Ceridwen's terrible allergy to dust (which was, in fact, why the mansion was kept immaculate). After a moment, Dwight lowered his arm and turned to look at the girl. She gazed back up at him in awe and confusion. He chuckled softly and then pulled the door open a little more.

"My father was a genius, Miss Nistuart. Instead of having complicated locks and so on that would eventually allow the dedicated thieves entrance to something protected, he had secret entrances." He laughed softly as they entered the room. Ceridwen kept her arm over her face protectively, the fierce look in her eyes now replaced by redness. "I suppose my father might have been happier as a detective in a Sherlock Holmes novel. How he loved to purchase the novellas from the local shoppes and have them solved by the third page. Mother found it tiring at times, but I was always fascinated and begged him to teach me how he did it."

"Did he ever teach you?" Ceridwen asked half coughing. Dwight turned to her and gave a half smile.

"If he had, then he would have included the lesson where you never share your secrets with others." Dwight reached over to the right side of the wall and felt around the masonry for a moment. He smiled brightly and pulled down the switch that illuminated the large stairway into the cellar. Unlike the stairways into cellars that Ceridwen had seen in films (or read about in books like this one), the stairway was not wound downward. It was a straight descent into the cellar itself. It looked to be about twenty feet down. The stairs had sturdy oak railings and seemed to be just as sturdy themselves. While the rest of the house still had problems with creaky doors and squeaky faucets, these stairs seemed to be silent in observance of the sacred contents of the cellar. Ceridwen frowned a little in confusion.

"What's down here?" she asked carefully as she tried to adjust her eyes. A line of small light bulbs led the path accross the cieling where the stairs themselves were, but it didn't seem like there were many more of them in the cellar to give light that would make identification of the room easy for even a young woman with cat vision. Dwight continued into this deeper cellar than the basement, saying nothing. After a few seconds of noting that Ceridwen was hesitating out of fear, he turned and smiled brightly.

"Things... wonderful things." He turned and looked around breathing deeply to draw in every possible memory of comfort and happiness. Ceridwen moved beside him and gasped. This must have been a wine cellar at some point, but the shelves on the walls looked more like they belonged in the Roman senatorial library. They were filled with rolls of paper. Several tables with papers, models, bits of string and wood, old bottles of old substances, and even a few completed projects lay all around this room. She smiled and moved towards the nearest table where an antique, and half finished, model of the Merrimack lay on a table with papers and bottles around it. Ceridwen admired it and went from table to table doing the same. She raced excitedly over to the walls and looked at one of the rolls of paper. Her eyes went wide with wonderment.

"1792? This is the oldest map of Topsail Island I've ever seen! This must have been made by..."

"Pirates? My father thought so. He and I were going to go looking for the lost treasure of Blackbeard after I completed at Yale." Dwight smiled as the trace of sadness made its appearance on his eyes and lips. Ceridwen noted this and set the paper back down. "Detectives, pilots, soldiers, pirates; my father and I were all of these things when I was a boy."

"That must have been wonderful," Ceridwen said softly as she approached him. Dwight looked straight ahead at her and then turned. Ceridwen had a bad habit of bringing up memories for him. While she always brought about the good ones, his own genetic codes always retrieved the bad ones as well. He sighed heavily and swiped one hand over his left eye so harshly that Ceridwen was afraid he might cut himself or push his eyeball into his own skull. He turned back to her.

"Back to why we're down here. Do you smell that animal?" he asked quickly. Ceridwen rubbed her arm nervously and cleared her throat. Dwight could hear the presence of muccus as she did so.

"I think my allergies are preventing that, actually. I probably should have warned you about that." She chuckled and then began to wander around the tables again. Dwight followed. If Ceridwen had terrible hayfever, then how had she survived being in that warehouse months ago? _She was in distress and being tortured, you twit_, his inner-cynic reminded. He growled at himself and ignored the remark. He watched her search the floors as carefully as possible. Her movements were so graceful, no matter what. Just how much of her even in human form adopted cat properties, he often wondered. Ceridwen seemed to be very cat-like in everything from eating to breathing. _No_, he thought to himself. _She is more swan-like if you're going to think along those terms_. Ceridwen suddenly stopped and froze. She breathed in sharply and sneezed violently four times. Dwight frowned and took hold of her shoulders, steadying her. She wiped her eyes and evened her breathing once more. "Sorry about that. I could have damaged one of your projects."

"Not an issue, there's nothing to apologize for unless you're out to undo the legacy of the Wrenn Men's Club," Dwight said with a laugh. Ceridwen laughed softly as she turned to face him. Her face was turning a slight shade of red and beginning to swell. He frowned more fully with incredible concern. "Ceridwen, I think you should go back upstairs. I can find whatever is making the noise."

"Are you sure?" Ceridwen asked. The words now came out as 'arb you zure' which demonstrated the further necessity of her leaving while she was still able to breathe. Dwight turned her around and gave her a shove towards the stairs. "You needn't be so pushy about it," she added now saying 'you deedn'd be zo bushy aboud id'.

"And there's no need for you to use an obvious and terrible pun. Go upstairs before you swell up like sponge," he instructed firmly. "The last thing I need is for Jeremiah to be put in charge of my treatments for several weeks while you recover."

"Zbonges do nod zwell, they zajurade do their full zize," Ceridwen said through slight coughs and sneezes. Dwight shook his head and chuckled. Even when slightly incapacitated, Ceridwen was a perfectionist. It seemed like she had to correct everything that was said or performed incorrectly. He pitied the poor man that lost his heart to her. Now that he was alone, Dwight turned to the tables of half made models and half dreamed visions. He dropped his expression for a moment and picked up an extremely old model of a Sopwith Camel. He affectionately ran his fingertips over the intricate woodwork in the skeleton and metallic pieces over the wings and nose. He had dreamed of flying these and taking down as many of the evil axis soldiers as possible. The military recruiter hadn't realized that Dwight was an only son when accepting him for a physical to begin with. It was after his slight victory over polio had been discovered that Dwight had recieved that wretched 4-f. He growled softly, but calmed himself at the memory of his mother holding him tightly and thanking God above that her baby hadn't been shipped off. His father had been livid at first and shouted incessantly. Dwight retreated here to the cellar where his father confronted him once more.

"Son, what I said was out of fear. Something you obviously don't have. My God, how incredible you are. Surviving illness, performing well in school, and instead of taking to a desk you want to take to the skies and drive the enemies of freedom into the sea. Dwight, I am in awe of you, my son. You're braver than I think I have ever been," his father had said in tears. Dwight had simply stared up at him in disbelief. At the rebellious age of seventeen, Dwight and his father had still managed to have somewhat of a close relationship and the consensous was that this cellar-club was the reason for it. His father had developed it when Dwight had been recovering from polio and had needed to be entertained without going outside. His father moved forward suddenly and embraced him. "God must have some incredible destiny planned for you to give you such a fiery spirit, my boy."

"Then why did he curse me with this leg?" Dwight said with tears of his own. He looked down feeling embarrassment and anger. Angus reached down and took his son firmly by the shoulder.

"Because you were never meant to have a body," he explained. Dwight stared at his father in total confusion. Angus smiled brightly. "You didn't start off like the rest of us as a soul waiting for an assignment, my son. You were a star. God plucked you right from the heavens and sent you here. I can't imagine why, but I'm sure it will be incredible to watch what happens. You'll never belong anywhere, Dwight, but you will have such a magnificent purpose."

Dwight stared at his father in tearful admiration. His father was often firm even when being playful. Dwight never found his father to be particularly cruel, unless he was disagreeing with him of course about a subject that Dwight was a full expert on, but he was also rarely this affectionate. Dwight remembered wrapping his arms around his father so tightly that he was sure they were breathing in the same air and were nearly pumping one another's blood. They had cried secretly and softly for a moment, then had set to work on the model of the Sopwith. Dwight's hands now trembled as he held this precious memory in his hands. He sighed and set it down carefully. Suddenly, the animalistic howl came from the corner of the cellar once more. Dwight whirled around quickly to face it. Now that he was much closer, he could clearly detect where it was originating. He walked hurriedly towards the howling as it began to intensify. In the corner, there were several crates and boxes that once held the bits and pieces of the models that the men had spent their affections with. Inside, the aged straw and wadded papers still remained. The howling was coming from these crates. He knelt and sniffed carefully. His eyes changed and his teeth began to sharpen a little as he detected blood. He moved one of the boxes aside and gasped. A bright smile crossed his face as he began removing his jacket and speaking softly.

Jeremy waited impatiently in Ceridwen's room. Ceridwen was sound asleep. Though the young girl hated, emphasis on hated, the effects of any sedative, she had begged for diphenhydramine as soon as she had made it to the other members of the team. Her face was fully swollen as well as her hands and her eyes were barely open, which was somewhat lucky since the redness in them made them sensitive to even the slightest amount of air. Jeremy and the medics had quickly administered a full dose of the medicine in an injection and set Ceridwen into her bed. Within moments, Ceridwen had fallen into a soundless, drug-induced sleep. Before her relieved eyes had closed entirely, she had told the men around her to make sure that Dwight recieved his next feeding as well as the fact that he was in the cellar taking care of something. She refused to tell them which cellar and emphasized to them that they were not to go in after him on pain of her personal wrath. While Ceridwen was not naturally a violent person, no one wanted to be on her bad side. Most of the team back at headquarters had learned the hard way that pacifists tend to be extremely volatile when angry and did more damage with their creativity than an average criminal. After an hour of Dwight being in the cellar and Ceridwen being in a peaceful slumber, Jeremy began to feel the agitation of impatience and lack of control. The fact that he didn't have immediate knowledge of where the little bloodsucker was and had been warned to not go after him was wearing on him. He sighed and looked down at Ceridwen once more. Even if he couldn't go into the very cellar where Dwight was, he could at least pace back and forth angrily in front of the basement itself. As Jeremy reached the basement door, Dwight appeared. His shirt was covered in some sort of fluid and blood and his jacket was missing. He looked extrememly excited, breathless, and his face was slightly vampiric. Jeremy snarled at him.

"What in the world have you been doing?!" he demanded. "Did you kill a rat's nest, you sicko? What were you thinking taking Ceridwen down there? She could have stopped breathing, you know! I should have you put in confinement for endangering your reformist!"

Dwight ignored Jeremy's rantings and headed past him towards the medical supply room. Jeremy frowned. Dwight hurriedly began gathering blankets, a basin, a first-aid kit, and a few other strange objects. He moved past Jeremy once more and headed back towards the cellar. Jeremy stopped him.

"Did you hear a word I just said? Ceridwen had a terrible reaction! What are you doing? Treating a victim?" Jeremy said angrily.

"No, I need to get back and help." Dwight pushed firmly past the boy.

"Why? What is going on?"

"I've had kittens," Dwight said quickly as he disappeared into the basement. Jeremy stood for a moment, his mouth gaping open in disbelief. Sure there were a plethora of unexplainable things that happened to him and people around him everyday; but a vampire having kittens, that was just ridiculous.


	3. Five Little Kittens

Chapter 3: Five Little Kittens

"Oh my goodness! They're darling!" Ceridwen exclaimed as she looked down at the bundle of five kittens lying against their mother. Dwight had made a makeshift bed for the queen and kittens out of one of his drawers and his long, billowing cape. Ceridwen was impressed with the sacrifice on his part and was also relieved to think that the cape would no longer be a permanent part of his ensemble. Without the cape, cravat, jacket, and vest, Dwight looked like he belonged in a portrait from the Victorian era. The mother cat, a solid black and very healthy looking one at that, looked sleepy after being fed for what everyone guessed was the first time in days. "How on earth did she get into that part of the basement? It was sealed shut."

"There was a small trap door that father installed years ago. His motto was to always be prepared for every eventuality and he was pyrophobic," Dwight said. He looked down proudly at the tiny young family. "Is it normal for them to look so... hairless?"

"You never had a cat growing up?" Ceridwen asked confusedly.

"Actually, mother kept Pomeranians and I was not allowed to have any other animal lest it should eat them." Dwight shuddered at the memory. "They were like loud, smelly, little yettis."

Ceridwen stared at him for a moment and then shook her head. "I'm guessing from your reaction and the history you've had with things that have upset you, you made their lives as miserable as they made yours?"

"I didn't say they made my life miserable," Dwight corrected quickly. He smiled. "They were mother's prized possessions." Ceridwen smiled slightly. "That's why it made _her_ life miserable when I shaved both of them bald."

Ceridwen frowned and rolled her eyes. She was getting the impression that had Jeremy and Dwight met in their younger days, they would have been inseperable, unstoppable, and unbearable. She sighed and stared down at the small family laying here in the basement. "I'm not sure the best place for them is down here. It's so damp and cool," She said with concern. She turned to Dwight, suddenly realizing something that should have been obvious to her several hours ago. "_This _was the house you were raised in!"

Dwight stared at her in confusion after the outburst and nodded slowly. He looked back down at the cat and her young with vain regret. That cape had been his for some five years and he'd grown attached to it. He wasn't sure he would ever be able to wear it again even if it were cleaned thoroughly. The primal part of himself that usually spoke only when he needed to feed or flee was laughing almost audibly at him for helping a stupid cat. Of course, for the past few years since he had been transformed, the primal part of him had been doing most of the speaking. It was rare, since Dwight was unaware of how to properly feed or live and was truly hoping to find a way to end this exsistance, that the man had an opportunity to hold conversations or even do simple activities like enjoying sights, smells, and sounds. The eastern belief that one had to be in tune with things to really be happy had become something violently obvious to the vampire, who was far from in tune at the moment, but closer than he had been in decades. His mind raced at the thought that someday he would be able to enjoy things once more. At the moment, he couldn't even enjoy the basic freedom of being able to go where he pleased when he wanted to. His plane, his most prized posession, was kept from him as well. How much more information did he really need here, to satisfy his curiosities? More importantly, how would he be able to convince Ceridwen and the others that they could trust him enough for him to make a clean escape?

_Break a few necks and head for the hangar,_ his primal side told him at the reminder that he was essentially a prisoner here. He pushed that out of his mind. He had enjoyed being able to think more clearly now that he fed regularly, slept regularly, and had human contact as regularly as someone in his position could. If it weren't for the sole fact that his freedom was taken away from him, then the set up would actually be quite comfortable. He pushed that thought aside as well. He couldn't allow himself to get too comfortable or enraged. The chip in the back of his brain had not activated fully in months, but during times when he had been furious with Jeremy it had made him very nauseated. He didn't know if this was in place of pain, or just a physical reaction that was due to his body acclimating. It didn't matter. Nausea was far less easy to handle than pain. It was one thing for Ceridwen to have come in on him writhing in pain during the electrical storm, but he truly did not want anyone seeing him kneeling on the floor, vomiting. He couldn't allow instinct to get the better of him to the point that he had a fleet of vampire-killers after him no matter where he went, but he certainly couldn't endure months more of the insanity of being kept in the mansion all day night every night.

"Ceridwen?" Dwight asked carefully. She looked up at him. The 24-hour allergy relief she had taken before coming down to the cellar with him gave her eyes the same colour and energy he had seen over the past few months and come to enjoy perhaps more than he enjoyed being able to reason again. He focused and tried to hide any emotion or intentions from Ceridwen's penatrative gaze. Somehow he just knew that she was able to see into his mind even while they were wide awake. "How long will it be before I can go again?"

Ceridwen frowned. Dwight had been absoloutely correct in his assessment of her eyes. She knew that Dwight had no intention of reforming at the moment, that he would leave the mansion with the intent to only kill worthy people now that he thought more clearly, and that he was feeling as trapped as a small animal in a cage. Despite this, Ceridwen had seen the hatred in his eyes diminish into rage and the rage die down into anger. This was something that she hadn't been sure was possible when beginning this project. She believed fully that everyone deserved a second chance and had gathered from Dwight's patterns that he was not a heartless, mindless, murderer. Now she had been proven correct, but Dwight was starting to feel impatient at the sudden lack in activity on his part. She hadn't discussed the fact that this might happen with herself when going through all of the eventualities that she would encounter as head of the team.

"Is something bothering you, Dwight?" she asked softly, looking deeply into his eyes. Dwight frowned.

"Only that I have no way of knowing how well I'm doing or how much progress I'm making," he said, trying to make himself sound like he was truly concerned with reforming and not with just knowledge and freedom. He wasn't a bad person, she knew this, but in his mind some humans simply needed to die. That wasn't just his view, either, nature had done a wonderful job of trying to show humanity that over millenia. "What do I need to do to be cured?"

Ceridwen frowned more and looked away, almost hurt at what he had said. She stood, slowly, and took both of his hands in hers. She looked up at him as if she were about to tell him something terrible that even he had yet to experience.

"Dwight, there is no cure. The purpose of my being here, of everyone's being here, is to teach you how to adapt to what you will be facing for another four or five centuries," Ceridwen said cautiously. Dwight stared back, unmoved by her statement. This only furthered her suspicion that Dwight was playing along enough to get by, but was not interested in true change. He was a free-spirit even as a human boy. Ceridwen did not want to see anyone 'broken' in spirit no matter what the reason. Still, if she couldn't get Dwight to see reason, then he would never really be free at all. He would always be escaping from something or someone. She looked to the side. "Perhaps you and I will talk more about this later."

"I want to know, Ceridwen. How long do I have to be here?" he said more firmly. Ceridwen turned and stared harshly at him. She was in no mood for anger or an argument, but she was going to have the subject left _her_ way.

"Adaptation is subjective to an individual's strengths and decisions, Dwight." Ceridwen often tried to use phrases that sounded like they came straight from a biology textbook when she was going to end a less pleasant conversation with him. "It could be anywhere from months to several years."

"Several years?" Dwight choked. Ceridwen turned and headed back up the stairwell. She was done with the discussion, but Dwight had not at all recieved something close to what he had wanted. Was Ceridwen saying that he could be here long after she left? He frowned. He couldn't stand being caged for several more months let alone several years. He sighed and headed up the stairs. The sun was beginning to rise. He could feel the atmospheric pressure change as the hours outside revealed the morning. He looked down once more at the cat, making sure that the kittens would be warm enough next to their mother. Mothers knew more than anyone usually gave them credit for. There were many places down here that the cat would have allowed as a nest, so she knew which would ensure the survival of her young. He took hold of the railing and began to climb the stairs. He needed to think about what lay ahead for him. He needed to talk at greater length with Ceridwen. The girl would not allow him any further conversing about the subject until nightfall, but he could at least corner her about it in their dreams. He walked silently into his room and closed the door tightly. If nothing else, he enjoyed being able to dream again.


	4. Poker With Comic Book Heroes: A

Chapter 4: Poker With Comic Heroes, A Richard Dees Exclusive

Dwight laid back against his pillow and breathed carefully. Several years? He didn't know exactly how long Ceridwen had in mind to keep him under this kind of torture, but when a woman said 'several' it had been his experience that it meant more than ten. Once, his mother had asked him kindly to do a few things for her while he was downtown visiting friends. The 'few things' was a list of fifteen tasks, most of them horribly embarrassing for a young man. He frowned. He really wasn't a heartless killer or a bad person, but he had come to a state of enlightenment during his years massing victims. While he was obviously incapable of being a normal human being, he was definitely an important part of the food chain and society itself. He was needed where he went. He had killed only criminals, abusers, tyrants, and people who were going to die even had he not torn into the major veins in their bodies. He had come to see this as a sort of 'enlightenment' as Ceridwen referred to it. He had always called such things epiffanies in his lifetime. Still, he had reached a state of understanding with his condition that no one else, especially Ceridwen could understand. Ceridwen had been infected with lycanthropy at such a young age and had then been immediately treated for it. How could someone that had yet to truly suffer from the effects of their disease preach to him about his options as a vampire? He frowned. Ceridwen was useful for information, but her pedantic and inexperienced nature was beginning to wear heavily on him. He wanted to climb back into Lenore, take to the skies, and not land until he smelled a deserving victim. It was clear to Ceridwen that she would need quite a bit of time to remind Dwight that it wasn't his place to tell people whether or not they deserved to live, no matter what they had done.

Dwight decided it best to shut out his current condition to keep from becoming nauseated again. Ceridwen had to be sleeping right now, he could visit her and still have the power to really bother her in dreams. He closed his eyes and allowed the gentle embrace of a satisfying slumber to wrap its appendages fully about him. He sighed and felt around in his mind to try and establish the nearest connection. He had yet to find himself in one of Jeremiah's dreams, which very well could have happened if Ceridwen had been experiencing insomnia while her brother was sound asleep at the same time as the aging vampire. Dwight retched at the thought of intruding into a sensual fantasy of the young man. While Dwight was not one to make judgements about people's private lives at first seeing them, he had gathered from everything he knew about Jeremiah that nothing in his mind would be what he considered normal. He saw a large, oak door in front of him. The door seemed solid enough, so the connection must have been quite strong. He frowned a little. This was not like anything he had experienced with Ceridwen's 'dream school' before. In fact, the reason behind the two of them always appearing as though they were back in their first year of senior school was beyond his understanding. Still, there was no knowing what lay behind any door unless one opened it in the world of dreams. He reached down for the large handle and turned it slowly. Dwight nearly passed out with sheer confusion at what he saw next.

The room was something he seemed to recognize from his youth. His father had allowed him along with him to this kind of occasion after he had turned sixteen. The room was paneled with oak halfway up the walls and was covered in hunter-green wall paper to the cieling. From the cieling hung a large chandelier that was dimly lit. Several smaller light fixtures around the room were also dimly lit. The room was about the size of Ceridwen's study/library that she had established. Rather than have one of the large rooms that were meant for human usage, she had chosen a tiny servant's room and the large book closet. This was no library, it was a poker parlor. He stared in shock at the rest of the contents of the room. In the centre of the room was a group of individuals that Dwight recognized from his late night activities in the retail stores at small airports and convenient stores nearby the airfield if that was the only place to go for a meal.

Yes, each individual (save for one), had been plastered all over comic books from the time he had been a young vampire up until now. He stared in bewilderment at the heroes he recognized as Superman, Spiderman, Captain America, and Batman (who Dwight felt would have been better if he had been named 'vampire man' since they essentially did the same thing save for having an alter ego). The men were each sitting with either a cigar in mouth or in hand. Superman had a large pitcher of beer next to him. Spiderman had an empty glass next to him and would make a comment to his neighbor every now and then that it would be 'super' for him to just top off the glass to which Superman would make a crack about 'your friendly, neighborhood AA group. Captain America had a basket of large flowers on the floor and kept arguing in a high-squeaky voice that flowers were currency in early American settlements and Batman simply sat snickering and looking over the cards in his hand at the other players with wicked anticipation. At the head of the hexagonal table was a very pleased looking Richard Dees in traditional 'poker dealer' get up complete with green visor. Dwight felt almost ill at seeing a scantily clad Catwoman and nearly innappropriate Wonderwoman on either side of him. Both were stroking his almost bald head, giggling and making small talk as he continued to play at cards with the rest of the men.

"What in the name of every living...?" was all that managed to sputter out of Dwight's mouth. Everyone turned to him. Richard dropped the cigar he was holding, staring at him in silence. "Dees, is this your dream?"

"Who's the kid?" Superman asked.

"Looks like Harry Potter's loser friend Nigel," Batman snickered.

"Come on, guys. You wanted spontaneous? Here it is. Take a seat, my man," Richard said. "Bets down, hands down. Who wins?"

"I fold," Captain America said sadly.

"You can't fold once you've made your bet, wierdo," Richard corrected. He watched as Dwight moved to the side of the table, unsure of where the best place to stand would be since Richard seemed to have all angles occupied. He frowned. Richard produced a hand with seven 'ace of spades' cards. All the men groaned and the two women began to clap triumphantly for the aging writer as he gathered up the pile of bills and expensive cigars in the centre of the table. Richard nodded towards Captain America who rolled his eyes and tossed two enormous pink chrysanthemums to Richard, grumbling to himself. "What's your name, son?"

"You know my name, Dees," Dwight said firmly. Every face at the table froze to a stone message of terror. Richard gulped a little and put everything he was holding down. The two women stopped moving entirely and watched Richard's reaction. "I didn't think I had established this kind of connection with you."

"I thought you had to keep track of all that as part of your little curse deal, Dracula," Spiderman retorted.

Dwight glared at the fictitious hero with hatred. Above anything, he loathed being referred to by the name of that stupid myth that Ceridwen swore was a vital part of Romania's history. He walked angrily over to the _archniman_ and (without changing fully to vampiric form) extended one claw. He growled as he poked the illusion at the shoulder, causing a loud 'pop' and the figure to disappear instantly. Dwight smiled. It felt good to eradicate someone that made him angry. He looked towards Richard and noticed the look of sheer horror on his face. Dwight smiled more brightly. This was wonderful. He walked around to each of the three other guests and did the same, each with the same result except for Superman who deflated into a small puddle with a bizarre scowl. Dwight turned towards Richard. The writer sat frozen as Dwight dispatched both fictional heroines wordlessly.

"Is this seat taken?" Dwight asked sarcastically. Richard said nothing as the young form of his greatest antagonist sat down near him at the table. Dwight picked up all of the cards and shuffled them expertly, then dealt. "Surprised to see me?"

"Yeah. How are you... ?" Richard muttered.

"That connection that allowed me to give you that memory and take it away. I had no idea that you were next in line for this. The only other two that I am connected to like this are Jeremiah and Ceridwen," Dwight explained.

"Oh yeah? Where are they?" Richard asked a little louder. Dwight motioned for Richard to take the hand of cards and play. Richard hesitantly took all of the cards in hand and cleared his throat.

"Not asleep, apparently." Dwight looked almost irritated at that.

"You and the little girl get into an argument or something?" Richard laughed. Dwight growled and stared harshly at him.

"I think simply staying with her to gather information will be harder than I initially thought," Dwight admitted sadly.

"You actually told her that you have no intention of fully reforming?" Richard asked raising a confused brow. Dwight had a good thing going if he could work it properly. Ceridwen would take care of him and defend him from any harm (which now seemed to be a reality for him after his sire had attacked) while all he had to do was whatever was asked of him on the surface. Richard found it less oppressive than either rehab or prison. Dwight frowned.

"Not exactly, but I think she suspects it," Dwight said sighing.

"She's a woman. That uterus holds fifty percent of the world's empirical data and is a psychic monitor," Richard said with a shrug. "You'd better get used to her knowing about stuff you're thinking before you even think it."

"It's just that, for all the knowledge she has, there's very little experience or time-tested reason behind it," Dwight replied. Richard laughed. Dwight glared at him. "What?"

"You talking about reason. You're a vampire, Dwight. Reason isn't exactly what's gotten you what you need to survive," Richard chuckled. "I mean, experience might have, but not cognitive thinking.

"Empirical? Cognitive? They must be using bigger words in those trash novels you read," Dwight muttered. He looked directly into Richard's eyes. "I spared your life, Dees. Every minute you live is by my mercy. You are, after all, the reason that I am in this prison. I fully intend to confront you about that when I am freed, _physically_." Dwight emphasized the word physically with a primal growl and the lift of his brow.

Richard shook his head. "You going to kill me this time?"

"No," Dwight said softly, realizing that Richard was probably the only person on earth that understood Dwight's personality and could give him sound advice. That alone was enough to depress the vampire into drinking like Superman. He sighed and looked over at Richard between a mix of anger and sadness that no one had seen from him in years, perhaps not even Ceridwen.

"I hand't thought about the fact you were a kid once," Richard mused as he looked through his hand. He noticed the anger in the gaze growing to surpass the sadness. Richard set down his cards and looked firmly at Dwight. "Listen, I'll give you the advice my mom gave me before she died, God rest her soul. It wasn't something I really took to heart until our little confrontation, but now it's gospel truth to me. You only live once, Dwight. And in your case I mean it in the sense that you will only get to act in the moment once. However, you get to reflect, listen, and watch as much as you want before you have to act. Take advantage of that. Think about things as much as possible and concentrate on what you've got to work with, not what's working against you. I guarantee it's the best advice you'll ever recieve. That's not to say that you shouldn't grab life by the horns from time to time, but people with your ambition rarely need to hear positive reinforcement that spurs you on to do more. You're already doing more than most people."

"Is this you, or your subconscious talking to me?" Dwight asked in slight disgust of the man's seemingly superior maturity for the moment.

"Right now? Both, tiger. Otherwise, if you were sitting accross from me I'd be backing into a corner or something whimpy like that. You already know that though, don't you?" Richard replied with a smirk. "So you came to me as a boy for advice, something that wouldn't scare me and the gang off."

"Actually this is apparently how I appear in dreams all the time, at least when I'm conscious of them," Dwight said with a shrug. "It confuses me. I used to see images that my victims saw as I tore into them since I had their last memories stored temporarily, but I guess that's stopped now that it's been a good few months since I've killed someone."

"So this is how your mind interprets the 'inner you'?" Richard watched Dwight's face stare at him with the universal expression of 'What did you say, old man?' He sighed and reached under the table, withdrawing a box of expensive Cuban cigars out of nowhere. "I started having all these nightmares after the incident in Wilmington, so I started to do everything necessary to treat terror and insomnia at home. According to alot of the things I researched after you and I _met_, you appear to others in your conscious dreams as you interpret yourself. Do you see what I'm saying?"

"I appear in my dreams to everyone else as I appear to myself in the back of my mind," Dwight repeated.

"Exactly," Richard said as he took one of the long-brown cigars from the box. He looked at Dwight. "You old enough for one of these?"

"I am older than _you_, Dees." Dwight looked away for a moment. Did he really see himself as just a young boy to others around him? This was impossible! He was immortal and had an insurmountable strength to him, he was superior to other beings around him!

"I meant in this body, champ," Richard said as he lit the end of the cigar and breathed in deeply.

"If you call me one more of those boyish nick-names, I am going to end you in your sleep. I _can_ do that," Dwight growled. Richard laughed a little.

"Do it," he said, waving the cigar to the side ceremoniously. Dwight looked away. "Look, you already messed up the game for tonight. This dream is on my terms so just relax, this is my happy place. This is where a man can really settle down and be himself."

"I can't even do that in my waking hours," Dwight grumbled.

"Again, you're concentrating too much on what's working against you and not what's working for you. Loosen up, live a little." Richard noticed the cards in Dwight's hands burst into flames. He chuckled. "It's a dream, Dwight, anything goes."

"Anything?" Dwight asked wickedly.

"Almost anything. I am kind of in control right now," Richard said with a wink. "You like wrestling?"

Dwight stared at him in silence for a moment with one brow cocked upward. Richard smiled and turned, pulling an invisible remote control out of nowhere and clicking it towards the wall. The wall's dual paneling suddenly disappeared, giving way to a large wrestling ring where a large, bald, Samoan man in a ballerina costume was readying to fight a midget in a red devil costume. Dwight groaned and decided it was time to leave as the announcer blasted that the match between 'Dennis the Diva' and 'the Dirt Devil' was about to commence. He stood and headed towards the door he had used to enter. Richard turned and watched him. Dwight whirled around and shook his head at the man.

"You were drinking before you fell asleep, weren't you?" Dwight said with a grimace.

"No, this is me in the raw," Richard laughed as he put the cigar back in his mouth. Dwight sighed and turned back to the door. "Remember what I said, focus on what you have working _for_ you."

Dwight frowned and grasped the handle. He had to get out of this freak show, now. His eyes snapped open and he groaned loudly. He could hear the soft rumble of thunder in the distance and rain beginning to fall outside. This was nice. It didn't appear to have been very long since he'd fallen asleep. He tried to concentrate on something else besides the nightmare he had just waltzed into. There were some evenings where he would wake after having a profound dream and get up to write down all the details for future reference. In almost all of those cases, the dream would slip away from him like a whisp of smoke. Why couldn't this dream fade out like that? He grumbled to himself and tried to think of the near future as he settled back down to sleep. The full moon would be back soon, meaning that Ceridwen would need special attention from the others to a certain extent. He smiled. Perhaps if he feigned anxiety over her, he would have the edge he needed to slip away while everyone else was tending to her. Plans were not his specialty by any reckoning, but making a basic outline of what he needed to do was. This would be easy if he could just get all the pieces into place in the next two weeks. Two weeks and he would be free to fly as well as think clearly, that was a dream worth pursuing.


	5. Feline Behaviour

Chapter 5: Feline Behaviour

Dwight shook himself out of the disturbing dream and crawled angrily out of his bed. This had to end and quickly, even if it meant doing something that he truly didn't want to. Ceridwen had been a kind enough person and had proven that she wanted what she thought was best for him. However, like most outsiders looking in on a situation, she had forgotten that she might not have known what was best for Dwight. He growled and clenched one fist as a small twinge of pain began to pulse through the back of his head and down his spine. During his recovery, the Bureau had installed a smaller and somewhat less powerful microchip at the base of his pons, making transformation once again painful. Any raged outbursts or sudden onsets of fear would be punished in a like manner as well. Dwight felt amused that even sheer joy might cause him pain. He huffed to himself and stood in front of the dark amber glass window. A small rumble of thunder ignited the atmosphere in the distance. He sighed. Storms and nastier weather seemed to be some norms here. He remembered his home as sunny most of the summer, but now it seemed like a typical dismal cloud had followed him the way it followed all Hollywood vampires. A deeper growl found its way from the back of his throat at remembering what he was. He hated that word; no, _loathed _it. He was strange, abnormal, and perhaps even frightening, but he was no monster. He was a natural and necessary part of nature's new food web. Population in all parts of the world had exploded since the time of his birth. Obviously the disease was nature's natural way to control the numbers before a pandemic took nations by storm. He was doing people a favour! Why weren't more people grateful for the release of death in such a wicked world? He groaned and stalked away from the window, heading down the stairs and back toward the cellar once again.

As he made his way slowly into the lower regions of the old mansion, he listened carefully to the conversation going on above him. The voices that had caught his attention were unmistakably Ceridwen's and Jeremy's. He stood perfectly still, leaning against a wall and trying to listen closely as they argued not more than two rooms away in the level above him.

"He's had plenty of time to recover from that escapade, Ceri. There's no reason why he can't start the education process!" Jeremy argued.

"I do not want to overwhelm him, Jeremy!" Ceridwen shot back. "He's been through so much. A little time adjusting to life here may seem like a chore for you, but it is exactly what he needs."

"Yeah? Well headquarters isn't interested in what he needs. It's what they need. What they need is paperwork proving progress in the rehabilitation program," Jeremy snorted.

Dwight suddenly heard something unusual; Ceridwen slinking back with her head lowered silently. This was not only unusual because one doesn't usually hear a person stepping backwards and lowering their head, but also in that Ceridwen had never backed away or been silent before. Furthermore, it was difficult to imagine Ceridwen with her head lowered for anything other than loss of consciousness. Jeremy's words must have hit something sensitive within her.

Jeremy sighed heavily. "Look, he already seems to trust you enough and if you make things interesting he's sure to pay attention at least for a little while. You're good at making things interesting. Heck, you got me to actually listen to that piece of junk by Dickens. What was that again?"

"Great Expectations, Jeremy; it was Great Expectations. Whether or not its appealing is beside the point. Do you remember how intimidated you felt when you walked into your first physiology class?" Ceridwen said in slight frustration.

Jeremy nodded in return. Dwight scooted closer to the edge of the stairwell and leaned even closer. "Think how intimidating it must be for a person suffering from an illness that has been romanticized into anything but what he has experienced and he has been missing out on the eighty odd years that have passed right in front of him. Sure, he's seen things and heard things as well, but that pales by comparison to being involved and alive around them. Dwight needs more time."

"He doesn't have more time, Ceri," Jeremy said heavily.

Ceridwen's heart stopped and a prickly cold branched through every vein simultaneously. Dwight felt his own breath catch uneasily in his chest at the sound of her pulse skipping with dread. Was he in danger? "I needed to tell you this yesterday, but you had that little me-time thing and I thought you might be needing to relax a little. You've looked so tense lately. Maybe you could let me . . . "

"What did you need to tell me, Jeremy?" Ceridwen asked harshly. Jeremy frowned and averted his eyes from the hot gaze of his sister for a moment.

"They're sending someone to do an assessment of him, of the project." Jeremy watched as Ceridwen's gaze shifted to curious rather than upset. He relaxed slightly and moved an inch closer to her. "They said she's a hemopathologist, whatever that is, and she's going to take a look at things from every angle; physical, metaphysical, economic, ergonomic, all that good stuff. They need to make sure that everyone involved is benefitting."

"That shouldn't be a problem for us at all, whether or not Dwight has begun lessons," Ceridwen said folding her arms like a pleased professor. "By the by, a hemopathologist is a specialist that studies diseases of the blood. I would imagine that she's been training for years under strict conditions to be a specialist for the Bureau. She must have studied all forms of lycanthropy and vampiricism as long as I have, perhaps longer."

Dwight felt his stomach churn at the mention of this. He couldn't understand why at the moment, but something inside him told him that this was not good news and Ceridwen should not be this excited.

"Whatever. Look, I know you've put your heart and soul into this case. You've almost died for it already. Please, just try the start of one lesson and see how he does," Jeremy pleaded. Ceridwen frowned and looked at her brother sternly. He sighed and placed his hands on both of her shoulders. "He's not going to get any better if you don't start taking things up a notch."

_Since when did you care about my well-being you little twit?_ Dwight thought to himself. He shook his head as another jolt of anger moved through him. Why was he feeling so enraged now? He had spent weeks learning to control himself and hide emotions from his own body. What could be bringing on this sudden rush of negativity? Certainly it couldn't only be the need he had for freedom. He groaned and clenched his fist near his face, willing the anger away fully as he continued to listen carefully.

"That's a good point, Jeremy. I'm very surprised you thought of it," Ceridwen chuckled.

"I have been known to think from time to time," he replied with a laugh. "She'll be here in four weeks. We have time, but I think you owe it to all of us to get started ASAP."

"True enough, big brother," Ceridwen replied.

The door opened and the two exited the room. Dwight breathed deeply and listened as they approached the stairwell. He smiled. This would be the perfect opportunity to exact a little revenge. There was nothing more exhilarating or satisfying than seeing someone scared senseless even if it was only for a brief second.

"Just think; a hemopathologist qualified to assess a patient in rehabilitation. What a story she must have of her education and internship. You are sure it's a woman? Fascinating that it would be another female! She might be just the person I could share my theory about vampires and lycans with."

As the two rounded the corner on the landing, Dwight darted into the shadows in the darkened hallway beside him and watched the two begin to pass him on the staircase below. He smiled and crept out from the darkness, suddenly grabbing Ceridwen by the shoulders and growling loudly. Jeremy let out a high-pitched shriek that rivaled Ceridwen's scream. Neither were able to outshine the cry of anguish that was to issue forth from Dwight. Fortunately for the young vampire, both siblings did not have the same physical reflexes. As Ceridwen turned and planted her kneecap firmly into Dwight's groin, the ageless pilot was sure he felt every remaining fluid in his body rush to his esophagus and eyes. He heard Jeremy roaring with laughter as he sank to the floor, clutching his abdomen. He coughed and gagged loudly, but was able to hear Ceridwen shouting reprimands at both him and her brother. She knelt beside him and began to ask if he was all right at the moment. Dwight breathed heavily for a moment and then reached up to wipe the streams of tears away from his face.

"I was just trying to play a harmless joke," he coughed.

"Harmless," Jeremy snorted with another peal of laughter. Ceridwen glared up at him.

"Don't you have somewhere you need to be getting off to, Jeremy?" she said coldly.

He frowned as if having been scolded by a nanny and turned away slightly. "Now I do," he muttered. "I'll be in the kitchen if you need me."

Dwight gasped for breath and finally found the strength to raise himself to his feet. Ceridwen sighed heavily and stood cautiously beside him.

"What on earth were you thinking, Dwight? Did you want to end up sterile?" she asked in a heavy sigh.

Dwight groaned and steadied himself. He looked down, ready to shoot fire into Ceridwen's soul since he was unable to act otherwise in anger against her. The look in her perfect green orbs caught him more off guard than her defensive assault a moment before. Now all the fluids in his body rushed straight to his face and hands, causing warmth and anticipation to begin flowing freely throughout the rest of him. Ceridwen seemed to be both examining him and calming him at the same time. She obviously felt no real need to apologize since she had been acting in self-preservation mode, but the energy coming from her gaze told Dwight that she truly hated to see him, or any other being, in pain. What upset her all the more was that she had been the cause of it. He frowned and looked away. What he had done had been completely sophomoric and not in the least funny, but it had brought back to mind why he wanted to be freed without harming this innocent creature.

"I thought the mood could be a little lightened after that heated discussion you two had," he admitted quietly as he turned back toward the stairs. Ceridwen frowned.

"You were listening to a private conversation?" she said angrily.

"It wasn't very private, Ceridwen. I can hear most things in this house very clearly, even if they are near silent. You two were speaking loudly enough to reach someone in the next county by my standards," he remarked casually. He suddenly felt a burst of heat from behind him. Ceridwen's features were now glowing with intense anger. He turned and stared at her in confusion. "What is it? Why are you angry?"

"You've been listening to _everything_ in the house? Private conversations, meetings, phone calls, _prayers_?! Is nothing sacred to you? Can't you tune out for the sake of others' basic need for privacy?" she raved. Her form heaved with angry breaths and thoughts coursing through her.

Dwight stared at her intensely for a moment, trying to discern the cause of this sudden burst of anger. Ceridwen was many things, but rarely unreasonable and never cruel. Why was she behaving so strangely now? The glowing red in her cheeks offset the soft jade in her eyes and the cream-ivory texture of the rest of her skin so perfectly. He wanted to reach toward her and feel the softness he was sure would be waiting for him. He hadn't felt anything soft or welcoming on another human being in years. He shook himself for a moment before moving toward her. A scent caught his attention and he smiled. The moon must have been reaching perigee. Ceridwen's pheromones from her feline lycanthropy were not only intoxicating to him, but they were quite heightened at the moment. Unlike an average girl that experienced simple premenstrual ailments, Ceridwen had the crippling blood illness to contend with as well. While it might have been a hell to deal with, Dwight was sure by the way he was interpreting her signals that there was a silver lining in this somewhere, but it was too inappropriate for him to see or mention at this time. He smiled slightly and folded his hands behind him, bowing his head.

"I am sorry, Miss Nistuart. I should not have allowed myself access to a conversation between yourself and your brother. It was rude of me," he said calmly.

Ceridwen frowned and took a step back. "Are you condescending to me?" she demanded.

Dwight straightened and glared slightly at her. "Are you refusing my apology?" he retorted.

Ceridwen turned a deeper shade of pink, this time on all of her features. This colour indicated shame instead of indignation. Dwight felt perfectly pleased. He may not have been able to scare the living daylights out of her, but he had won a prize well worth pursuing through a kick in the pants; he had made Ceridwen ashamed of herself on no less than two counts in the past few minutes. He dared not smile at the moment, but within himself he beamed brightly. She sighed and placed one hand on the back of her head as she looked away from him.

"That news I received was good, but I guess that and a few other things have put me on an edge. I'm sorry, Dwight. I shouldn't have been so offended. It must be annoying to have such keen hearing in a house full of people," she said.

Dwight smiled and began to saunter past her onto the stairs. "I have come to find ways around it. I have other keen senses as well and believe me, _smelling_ everything around you is no picnic either," he mused. "Still, they do come in handy."

"I agree. There are times when my senses are heightened by the lycanthropy and I am so grateful that I'm not in the dark about things around me. I think that's more why people are frightened so easily at night; they can't easily detect things around them." Ceridwen knew that what she was saying was old news to anyone, especially someone as learned as Dwight, but tedious conversation was better than strained silence. She cleared her throat as she followed him down the stairs. "Are you going to check on the litter, too?"

"They are mine," he said casually. He could hear the frown on the girl's face. Ceridwen was of the firm belief that no one owned an animal. Pets were to be called companions and were to be treated with the utmost care and respect. Dwight found her need to nurture absolutely every living thing charming. It was quite annoying from time to time, but charming at moments like these. "About what you said a moment ago," he added as they approached the door to the cellar. "Am I able to have children? Am I still normal in that aspect?"

"Why should that matter?" Ceridwen asked in genuine curiosity. Dwight turned and stared harshly at her. Ceridwen's gaze remained unmoving.

"Men see their fertility as somewhat more important than women do," he commented.

"Debatable; centuries of information and events would say otherwise," Ceridwen corrected. Dwight ceased moving and stared at her more harshly. She smiled. "You're perfectly normal in that regard. It may dehydrate you more than the average man, but lovemaking for people with DNA altering conditions is intense. You not only have human romance and passion, but you also have animalistic instinct and hunger as well. That aside, vampires and lycans both can have offspring with or without transmitting the virus fully to them. They'll either be born with it in remission or develop it fully at puberty."

"Fascinating," Dwight said lifting one brow as he grasped the hidden handle and pulled the door toward him. With a loud creak, the cellar door opened to them both. Ceridwen breathed deeply and fished something from her pocket, slipping it immediately into her mouth and starting forward. Dwight took her by the arm and stared down at her. "Don't you remember what happened the last time you followed me down into the cellar?"

"No worries, I just took something that will take care of any reactions," she said proudly and moved past him.

Dwight watched the girl move effortlessly onto the stairs and start into the most sacred part of his childhood. It seemed wonderful and sad to be reunited with this little bit of magic once again. He sighed and took in the sights and smells over and over again. No matter how many times he had been down here in the past few days, it never satiated his desire to be back beside his father working on a model or map. This would have to do for the moment. In a few short days, he was sure that he could be back in the sky and away from any of these memories again. When he wanted, he might be able to return and replenish himself emotionally, but he felt it unnecessary to do so as a general rule. He sighed. Part of him wanted to stay and try to recapture what had been stolen from him, but the greater majority of him wanted to be rid of this whole mess. A soft growl came from him once again. Ceridwen whirled around and stared at him in concern. He coughed and shook his head, motioning for her to continue toward where they had set the nest with both mother and her five kittens. Ceridwen moved nervously down the hallway in the cellar. She might have been acting strangely, but Dwight seemed to behave just as abnormally as she did at every turn. Perhaps Jeremy was right and Dwight needed to start learning about his illness and the world very soon. Maybe lessons would take his mind of off old habits.

"They're still so small," Ceridwen remarked as they approached the large cloth and fur bundle. The kittens lay comfortably tucked around their mother, sleeping peacefully. Dwight watched her kneel and settle behind the mother, taking the cat's head in both hands. The cat was positively smiling as Ceridwen cradled her chin and began to stroke the top of her head gently.

Dwight found this very odd since the cat and Ceridwen should have been at odds with one another given the current status of them both. Ceridwen was definitely hormonal with her illness and the cat should have been extremely defensive of her young. Perhaps there was some kind of unseen bond between the two as females that gave Ceridwen license to handle the cat even in her altered state. He frowned. Altered or not, when females were on the defensive they behaved exactly like cats; defending with claws extended and teeth bared. There was something else at work here, or maybe it wasn't her lycanthropy that he had smelled at all. Maybe he had caught the scent of something else and Ceridwen had been genuinely offended. He scratched his chin, thinking for a moment, then decided it best not to say anything else for the time being.

"They look more like kittens, now," he mused. Ceridwen smiled and began stroking the cat's back. Her tail began to swish for a moment, then settled back over the cloth nest. "Their eyes are not opened yet," he said as he looked over them carefully. "When will they be able to see and walk?"

"They're able to walk a little now. They're just tired. I believe their eyes will open in about three weeks, but I can't be sure. That sort of thing never really mattered to me. What mattered was weaning and litter training, which will both come much later," Ceridwen said with a laugh.

Dwight smiled and did something uncharacteristically reckless. He had wanted so terribly to feel the softness of Ceridwen's cheek earlier. Softness was not something he had ever thought that he would crave, but it was the very reason that Lenore was lined with velvet and silk rather than less expensive and more practical cloth. He reached forward and gently brushed the tips of his fingers against the head and back of a small grey kitten. Warmth filled him at how delicate and magnificent this creature was. Without thinking, he began to very carefully stroke the kitten. His presence of mind returned when a loud snarl, hiss, and flash of black fur struck at his hand. A sharp pain suddenly went through his hand as he instinctively retracted it from the kitten. He held his hand closely to him and looked down at it, breathing sharply. Three large gashes began to drip with bright red blood as he looked at it. The sharp pain at the base of his neck was tolerable as he tried to think of a way to nurse this awkward pain. Ceridwen, who had gasped at the sudden attack and had been repeatedly asking Dwight if he was hurt, now stood leaning over him.

"I think I overstepped a boundary," he said between quick breaths.

"Breathe calmly, Dwight. It's very easy for a vampire to hyperventilate," she instructed and hurried toward one of the nearby tables. Dwight turned and watched her search the drawers of the desk until her eyes lit up with relief. The desk looked as if it had been disturbed recently; the dust on the surface was nearly all wiped away. Ceridwen returned to his side carrying a first-aid kit. She knelt and took his hand in hers. "I brought down supplies last night. I thought that something like this might happen to one of us, or worse, one of them," she said nodding toward the kittens and their mother.

"Somehow I do not see her allowing any harm to come to those little ones," he said as Ceridwen began to clean the wound with Bactine. He grunted and clenched his teeth. "She seems to be quite protective."

"If I had carried five babies at once and then given birth to each one several minutes apart, then I would be a little protective too," Ceridwen added. She finished cleaning the cuts, noting that Dwight was not transforming or becoming extremely violent with her. His eyes had shifted to a dark brown hue and his teeth seemed to be a little pointed, glistening brightly as he inhaled. "In fact, I might turn into a demon every time someone approached my babies after that much trouble."

Dwight nodded. A light went on in his mind. He turned toward the cat once again and smiled at her. Ceridwen looked up as she realized that he was staring at the cat once again.

"That's a perfect name, demon, but it is not very feminine. Let me think; Desdemona, that is very fitting," he said grinning. To Ceridwen's surprise, the cat seemed to be grinning in return, as if Dwight had deciphered a message that she had sent them directly. He chuckled and then groaned as Ceridwen applied a special ointment to the wound. "I take it that average, _urgh_, medicine is insufficient for, _orgh_, myself and others like me."

"You won't get sick or infected like other people with your immune system in permanent overdrive, but it is possible to have complications. Vampires are free bleeders until they repair themselves, and repair only takes place if you're at peak condition, ergo more than enough nutrients and rest. I can see by the dark circles hanging under your eyes that you haven't slept well in a while and that you've not been eating like I've asked you to, either. At least you've been keeping yourself satiated enough to stave off an attack," she muttered as she began to bind the wound. "You're lucky she didn't bite you."

"She wasn't trying to, _urgh_, be cruel. She was, _oww_, being a good mother," he corrected. "She didn't need to bite me."

"There, this should do just fine," Ceridwen said as she lifted his hand up in front of them both. "Look, a perfect example of basic first-aid for a skin abrasion."

"My mother did much better than that. The wounds she treated hardly hurt at all while she bound them," he snorted.

Ceridwen frowned at him. "That's probably because she kissed it first," she retorted.

Dwight laughed. "There, you see? Mother was not only a medical genius, but the very source of a cutting edge treatment for a specialized condition," he said.

"Oh please," Ceridwen chuckled as she rolled her eyes. "Anyone can kiss a boo-boo and make it all better," she said in a typical mock baby-talk voice heard with the word boo-boo.

"Not just anyone" Dwight argued indignantly, still allowing his hand to rest lifelessly in Ceridwen's. "I can guarantee that a kiss from my father or your brother would hardly do the same."

"I concur with that much," Ceridwen replied. "But a kiss," she said as she lowered her face to his hand and gently pressed her lips half against the bandaging and half against the smooth, pale skin; "is beneficial from any source of feminine tenderness."

Dwight trembled slightly and stared at the young girl in total shock. What had just happened? He felt as if someone had set him on a stool, then grabbed the legs and shook it madly in a makeshift earthquake. He swallowed hard and continued to simply stare into her eyes expressionlessly. Ceridwen stared back, tilting her head slightly as she tried to decide which emotion, exactly, he was feeling at the moment.

"Ceri! Phone call!" Jeremy shouted from upstairs as loudly as he could. The fact that it had reached the cellar and wrenched apart the intensity of the moment told Ceridwen that he was yelling at the top of his lungs, and may have been doing so for several minutes already. She sighed, frowned and stood up quickly. Dwight opened his mouth a little, hoping that words might magically form in the right order and tone without the need of his mind, which was completely numb at the moment. Ceridwen shook her head and turned back toward the stairs, hurrying to answer the call of her brother.

"Go and get something to eat and replenish your blood supply, Dwight," she instructed as she headed up the stairs. "I'll check on you later. We have something to discuss about the next few weeks, as well."

Dwight frowned and cursed himself as the shock wore into embarrassment. _She kissed the back of your hand like a toddler, you ninny! And now you've shown her that the slightest show of tenderness turns you into some sort of helpless fop! You pathetic excuse for a man! _His conscience chided. How he wished he could tell his conscience to shut up and mind it's own business without looking insane. He sighed heavily and stood up, moving back in the direction of the stairs as well. He turned and stared back at the cat for a moment.

"Desdemona," he whispered. "I hope _you_ are the cause of her strange behaviour. I hope it is not something silly."

Desdemona smiled back at him and squinted her eyes. He was sure he could hear the cat speaking to him in the back of his mind.

"You mean you hope it isn't anything as silly as the reason for _your_ strange behaviour," the cat's voice seemed to say.

He groaned and headed up the stairs. First he had fumbled all over himself and now he was hearing cats' voices. Ceridwen was right; he needed to eat and sleep.


	6. Freedom and Its Reprocussions

Chapter 6: Freedom and Its Reprocussions

Ceridwen had spoken to her sister on the phone, glaring at Jeremy for making something like that sound like an emergency. Jeremy had shrugged, secretly breathing a sigh of relief. As necessary as it was for Ceridwen to have moments alone with Dwight during the rehabilition process, the thought of the two of them being unobserved was unsettling to him. He would never trust Dwight and he would always worry for his little sister. Adopted or not, Jeremy had taken Ceridwen to him like blood and wished that he could have done the same for Lucille, Ceridwen's younger sister. Ceridwen hung up the phone after the 'goodbye's, 'I miss you's, and 'I love you's had been said. She stared harshly at her brother. He moved the straw protruding from a small glass of water away from his mouth and stared back.

"What?" he said in feigned innocence. Ceridwen sighed and moved past him towards the stairs.

"You know very well what, Jeremy. Lucille expects me to call her back from time to time to save on their end of the line. Calls from over there are terribly expensive," she said in irritation. "Not to mention that you knew I needed to talk with Dwight for a few minutes."

"Minutes, yes, but it had already been a good fifteen. That's more than a few, Ceri," Jeremy corrected.

"Be that as it may, you need to learn when and when not to call for me. I'm needed by him more than I am you; emergencies should be the only exception." She turned to move back to the cellar. "Dwight is still in the beginning phases and will need my help practically twenty-four seven."

"You make him sound like newborn," Jeremy laughed coldly. "Only most babies won't try to eat your throat out when you're back is turned. Or when it isn't, he'll do either."

Ceridwen whirled around and shot a sharp look at him. He raised one brow, challenging her to disagree with him. She frowned and shook her head before turning and walking back down the stairs. Part of her was haunted by the fact that Dwight was more than capable of doing away with her, but the majority of her repeated loud cries for his innocence in her head. She breathed deeply and made her way back to where Dwight was probably still waiting. She hadn't heard him come up the stairs. She stopped for a moment and thought. She hadn't heard him move up any set of stairs at all. She frowned and moved more quickly into the basement. As she fumbled with the lock and opened the door, she noted that the light remained on and nothing had been disturbed near the stairwell. Her heart began to race as she hastily descended the stairs and raced over to the nest of kittens.

She gasped. Dwight wasn't there. In fact, it looked as if the young vampire had disappeared. A sound caught her attention away from wondering what evil had befallen her subject. A loud gust of wind blew furiously against the now opened fire escape on the left side of the wall. She growled low and clenched both fists at realizing her precious, needy subject had fled as soon as she had left him with an opportunity. She shouted a furious Gaelic curse in Irish, Scottish, and Welsh. Reaching behind her, she grasped a small model submarine and flung it furiously at the stairs. Ceridwen's eyes shifted slightly and her fingernails grew into the long claws that would aid any instinctive kills while she was untreated. During the heightened emotions of the past week coupled with piles of paperwork, Ceridwen had forgotten to take the necessary elevated doses of medicine for the full moon. As the glowing orb lay peacefully in the sky, Ceridwen bolted through the fire escape and looked hungrily around the grounds. If Dwight had made it to the edge of the property, he wouldn't have made one-millionth of the journey required to flee from the current wrath of the girl.

Dwight looked around at the sparse willow oaks and birch trees that stood in a small forest behind the property. His mother and father had adored these trees and encouraged the town to leave the forest undeveloped. He couldn't be sure at the moment, but he had heard his father say that he planned to buy the property once long ago. He sighed and leaned against one of the sturdy trees, pressing his forehead against his arm as he looked back towards the faint figure of the mansion. It lit up every few seconds with a flash from the sky. Why did the weather have to make everything so depressing? It seemed to have rained for days every other week since he had arrived. Storms were becoming frequent as well. The electric storm that had caused an episode months ago must have been a person's doing in Dwight's opinion. Electric storms that could have knocked out all of the reformists' equipment and his microchip were not common in Maine.

When he had seen the slightly opened fire escape door that his father had installed before his birth, he had realized exactly how the cat must have entered the house and a perfect route for him to use as an escape. Without any further thinking, which seemed to be a vice that he would be dealing with long after he had either left or conformed, he had raced out of the door and headed as far away from the mansion as he could. As he had reached the forest behind the enormous home, he had begun to think more clearly. Really all he had needed at this moment was to get fresh air on his terms. If the reformists would simply let him come and go as he pleased, then maybe he might be more willing to cooperate with them. He frowned. That would never happen and he knew it. All government programs required that the person in question be controlled entirely. Poor Ceridwen; she must have been quite a powerful and liberated young girl before the Bureau took her. Still, she seemed happy enough behind the facade of strength and determination.

His mind told him that he should either head back to the mansion before Ceridwen came back down the stairs to see about him or toward the hangar to make a clean getaway. The words Jeremy had given as a warning still resounded in the back of his consciousness. While Dwight had no fear of the Bureau or Ceridwen, he did fear the righteous anger of a brother taking vengence against someone that had wronged their precious sister. Worse, it seemed that Stephen would do anything to keep his adopted child happy and adjusted. If he managed to escape without playing along much farther, then the two of them would do away with him in a very painful and very permanent sort of way. The permanent part didn't bother Dwight as much as the painful part. As a man, he could imagine the kind of horrors that a father or brother could concoct to take out their anger on a worthy victim.

He shook his head. Ceridwen was risking her life. If she didn't at least appear successful, then both he and she would be destroyed. She was a rarity in this world, a kind and gentle spirit focused solely on the comfort and health of others. Not even the majority of physicians in the world could boast that. He owed to her and himself to go back at least for a little while. Perhaps he could propose that they allow him out when he wanted to simply walk around the grounds. From there he could ask about flight and once trust was to a heightened level, he could go far north. He had made a huge mistake in coming back to the Continental United States. He should have stayed far to the north where people disappeared for no good reason all the time. He smiled. It wouldn't be long to wait before he could get back to doing what nature intended. A warm satisfaction settled over him at the thought of being freed and back to his purpose once again.

"_There you are," _an almost familiar voice said in a guttural growl.

The warm satisfaction dissolved into immediate cold fear. Twigs and small leaves crackled and snapped as Dwight turned around to see what was approaching him. His heart sank. Not what, but who was approaching him now? The figure was hard to make out even with his nightvision. He should have done a better job of replenishing his resources as of late. He kicked himself for not eating or taking in the blood that he had been told to. Dwight had yet to fully grasp the concept that he needed the blood every day to keep himself healthy since he had been so used to consuming it whenever he could reach it while on his own. He squinted, narrowing his eyes to nearly slits as the figure stopped moving a few feet away from him. He and the creature stood in a small clearing waiting for one to speak again or attack. Dwight decided that the first was a better course of action since he could easily dispatch anything that tried to do away with him.

"Who are you?" he asked carefully. A cold, gravel-like laugh came from the creature as it moved forward into the centre of the clearing. His eyes widened as the features of this person or animal became clearer under the light of the full moon. This creature was only alive under the light of the full moon and never truly dead otherwise. He took one step back, breathing deeply. "Ceridwen," he whispered as the creature's eyes flashed her bright jade hue at him.

_"I leave you alone for fifteen minutes and you dart off the first chance you get," _she snarled. "_Do you have any idea what I'm going through for you? Do you have any what I've been enduring on your behalf, you ungrateful little hellion!?"_

"In my defense, Ceridwen, I only came out for a moment. I wanted some time alone, outside, on my terms," he protested. Ceridwen hissed, lowering herself to the ground ever so slightly. Dwight felt the hair at the base of his neck stand on end as the microchip activated at its lowest level in reaction to his fear. He grunted and clenched both fists, swallowing the desire to shout a number of curses in retaliation. "I am trying very hard not to revert back to what is in my blood. Being confined all day every day is not helping me cope with this illness!"

_"Day is hardly a time for you to be wandering around, Dwight!" _Ceridwen screeched. "_For that matter, the sun should be rising in only eight hours. You'll be back inside before then, of course; just probably not in once piece!"_

With the last few words, Ceridwen lunged forward with her claws and teeth extended fully towards their target. Dwight dodged to the side, ducking quickly and keeping a close eye on Ceridwen as she steadied herself. She had missed the target, but now her anger was rising beyond control. Dwight stared at her in confusion. Either Ceridwen had forgotten to take her medicine or she hadn't taken it in time. He panted and moved beside a tree that was a good several feet away from her. She turned and crouched, looking more wild and cat-like than ever. Her ears had pointed, extended, and morphed into the very shape of a cat's. In fact, the only human thing remaining on her was the shape of her face and the shape of the majority of her body. The immature curiosity in him wandered if she had a tail. He leaned to one side, trying to decipher whether or not he could see it. In the brief moment that Dwight had spent in his childish attempt to see a tail on a cat-girl, Ceridwen had managed to create a new plan of attack and begin to execute it. She leapt into the air and landed right on top of him, pinning him painfully to the ground with the top of his head crushed against the trunk of the tree.

Dwight cried out in pain both with the collision of Ceridwen against his body and the chip sending electric reprisals through his entire nervous system. He breathed very deeply and looked up, trying to assess the situation once again. Ceridwen leaned forward, opening her mouth and hissing loudly into his face.

"Ceridwen, you are not yourself," he choked. "Close your eyes and take a deep breath for..." Dwight was cut off for a moment by his loud cry of pain and Ceridwen's angry howl as she dug her knee into his abdomen. A logical part of the young vampire marveled at how similar all these sounds that Ceridwen was making were to an average house cat. "This is not professional behaviour!" he shouted through clenched teeth.

Ceridwen lowered her face further, pressing her wet, feline nose against his and staring hatefully into his eyes. He could tell that she was struggling to continue to form words rather than simply start biting into him.

_"Professional behaviour should be the least of your concerns right now, you pedantic freak of nature!" _she growled. _"I will not be called a failure or ridiculed any longer because of you! If you won't behave properly, then you'll at least die properly!"_

Dwight's eyes widened in terror as the girl closed in on his ironically exposed neck. He drew in a sharp breath, closing out all feelings and letting out a primal scream. Ceridwen was stunned by the sound momentarily. Dwight found the strength and opportunity to throw the girl off of him and use the trunk of the tree to stand quickly. Ceridwen was thrown farther away than Dwight had anticipated and now lay perfectly still on the ground. Dwight panted and watched her for a moment, feeling a human twinge of guilt make its way through the adrenaline haze he was experiencing now. He screamed once again, finding that the guilt had also allowed more of the pain from the chip to manifest itself. From that, all the rest of the pain in his body began to shove for first place in his senses. He grasped the back of his head, leaning against the tree as he knelt slightly from the crippling amoung of pain now gripping him. As he struggled to calm himself and gather his senses, he noted that Ceridwen was moving once again. This time, she didn't bother to stand. She simply rose to her hands and feet, remaining on all fours like an animal.

He panted heavily and decided that the best, and really only, course of action was to race back to the mansion through the fire escape. From there, he could race up the stairs, locking the door behind him, and find Jeremy. Jeremy would be able to get Ceridwen what she needed and do it without harming her further. The only way Dwight could subdue her was by bludgeoning her into a level of consciousness that was on the ladder rung above death only. As Ceridwen moved towards him with all of her primal instincts working together, Dwight darted to the left and began running furiously toward the mansion again. Ceridwen turned just as quickly and bounded after him. Dwight's heart raced as he thought of what Jeremy would say to this. Hopefully, the youth's concern for his sister would be too great to ask questions until Dwight had safely locked himself in his room once again. The mansion grew closer and closer as he dashed towards it. He never thought that, since he had developed past his adolesence, that he would be so glad to see this house again.

The fire escape door seemed almost invisible now. A desperate twinge took hold of him at the worry that he might not be able to make it through the door in time. An almost feline howl caused a series of shudders and soft cries to move through him. He prayed silently that some part of her humanity would return for a moment. Perhaps a sudden influx of horomones at smelling the kittens and their mother would distract her. He gasped. The kittens and their mother would be easy targets if she was locked in the basement. He grunted in frustration as the small door met him. He wrenched the door open and climbed through in a blink. Ceridwen howled once again, alerting Dwight to the fact that she was dangerously close and ready to kill. He looked towards Desdemona and her young, trying to think of something quickly. With only his instincts in power at the moment, Dwight raced over to the tiny family and grabbed all corners of the nest in an unnatural move of protection. Despite the annoyed cries from both the mother and kittens, Dwight hurried up the stairs just as Ceridwen's upperbody made its way through the door. She hissed furiously and began clawing at the floor in an attempt to move forward more quickly. Dwight had no more than made it to the entrance door when Ceridwen had made it to the bottom of the stairs. Fear flashed several disturbing images in his mind, stunning him for a precious moment. He growled loudly, gathering strength through the sound. He flung the door open and moved past, slamming it shut behind him.

Ceridwen's body collided with the door in a sickening thud. Dwight felt another twinge of guilt at the thought Ceridwen could have hurt herself on something as solid as that door. The sounds of several scratches and low growls gave Dwight evidence to the fact that Ceridwen was perfectly fine, at least in were-form. He breathed deeply, smiling at realizing that he was alive as well. Mewing and growling drew his attention back to the bundle still clutched uncomofortably in both his arms. He sighed heavily and sunk to the floor, slowly allowing the bundle to open and give air to the waiting kittens and their mother. He breathed an even greater sigh of relief at seeing that all of them were totally unharmed. Desdemona looked at him reproachfully and scratched him once as he moved away from the bundle. He was slightly amused, in the same immature part of his conscious that had plagued him earlier, that now the cat's scratch didn't bother him at all. Now came the hard part, bringing in help for Ceridwen. Dwight had never thought, since meeting the boy, that he would ever call on Jeremiah for help. He sighed, realizing that the first time he had sought the boy's help had turned out alright. The door to the cellar continued to sustain angry assualts from the girl. It would soon be weakening under claws and primal fury. Dwight breathed deeply and closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the wall.

"Jeremy!" he shouted. "Help!"


	7. Satisfactory Words

Chapter 7: Satisfactory Words

In the less than five minutes it took for Jeremy to arrive with two other operatives, Dwight heard no less than three more harsh collisions of Ceridwen against the cellar door, each followed with an inhuman howl of frustration and pain. Dwight felt himself cringe in natural fear. It seemed that this sound, the sound of a creature in ravenous pursuit of prey, made even the young vampire realize his _im_mortal limitations. He had once heard that the roar of a lion could cause a heart attack in a man for up to a mile away. He had thought little of such facts until now. Thoughts about the prowess and primal power of all cats great and small came flooding back in a mental reel of horrible images. Pain began to course through his chest as he realized that Desdemona had scratched him as she had been released from the safety of the bundle. He breathed deeply, clutching the back of his head in a determined command to his body to not react to this. Jeremy had run faster than any Olympian, skidding to a halt in front of the door with two operatives not far behind. He stared at Dwight in confusion. The vampire was a sight sitting on the floor, leaned back against the wall in exhaustion as blood dripped from small wounds on his chest, arms, and hands. Jeremy hesitated for a moment, examining Dwight carefully. A thunderous slam into the cellar door broke the strained silence of Jeremy's observation and caused Dwight to jump in a natural reflex of fright.

"She's turned hasn't she?" Jeremy asked breathlessly. Dwight drew in a deep breath.

"She must have, but it did not look exactly like her," he explained as he rose slowly to standing. Jeremy frowned at him. Dwight stared at him angrily. "Why were you not making sure that she was properly medicated against this, Jeremiah?"

Jeremy scowled at him. "I've been a little busy covering for the rest of the mess you've landed my sister in. I can only do so much," he said defensively. "She _is_ a big-girl, you know, and perfectly capable of keeping track of this kind of stuff."

"Be that as it may, she has been severely injured in the past three months and is probably still recovering. She needs the protection of her teammates whether they are busy or not," Dwight retorted angrily. Jeremy clenched one fist, then released it just as quickly.

"This isn't going to help her. She needs something to calm her until the sun rises," Jeremy said turning to the other two operatives. "I need lycan sedative, now." The two nodded and raced off towards the infirmary that had been created in one of the guest rooms. Dwight stared at Jeremy for a moment, then felt the world spin beneath him. He grunted angrily, reaching behind himself to hold onto the wall. Jeremy moved forward quickly, seeing the familiar swaying of someone in distress as well as the familiar gaze of an undernourished vampire beginning to manifest fully in his sister's charge. He frowned and looked to the side. "I'll need your help getting her the medicine."

"How?" Dwight asked as he closed his eyes for a moment.

"I'll need for you to hold her after I open the door. You're the only one with the strength to keep her from killing one of us now that she's transmorphed entirely," Jeremy explained. Dwight opened both eyes and stared at Jeremy in confusion. "Can you do that?"

"I cannot," Dwight replied sharply. "My strength is above average in human form, but not enough to do what you ask."

"I didn't expect you to do it in human form," Jeremy said in an uncomfortable tone. Dwight raised one brow at the boy in further confusion. Was Jeremy really suggesting that the operatives allow him to reach his full potential; while hungry? The look on Jeremy's face told Dwight that he feared more for his sister at the moment than anything. Dwight knew, from inductive reasoning, that the Bureau would not be at all pleased to hear that Ceridwen had succumb to her illness even for a short time. "I'm going to deactivate that microchip for a few minutes," Jeremy said. The tone of the boy's voice told Dwight that it was something he loathed saying or thinking about. "You keep hold of her until we get her sedated. So help me, if you try anything I'll..."

"Action, adjective, sensitive part of my body, length of time, eventuality for me," Dwight interjected. Jeremy glared at him. "I am well aware of your formula for threats, Jeremiah."

"Good," Jeremy shot back. "Then it won't be necessary to tell you what Ceridwen will do to you, either."

Dwight frowned and watched the two operatives return. He looked back down at Jeremy and nodded to him. Jeremy sighed heavily and took a small device from his pocket, moving around Dwight to stand behind him. The vampire braced himself, closing his eyes tightly as he heard the small 'pop' that alerted him painfully to the chip's inability to function. Jeremy grunted slightly in frustration with himself for allowing this to happen as he moved away from Dwight. He turned to the operatives who displayed the long hypodermic needle attached to the syringe of medication. He turned towards the door.

"Stand back," Dwight instructed.

Jeremy muttered something slightly obscene as he moved backwards. The youth's anger was building into resentment for both Dwight and himself. The hatred, at the moment, could be easily directed toward the vampire in a healthy manner. Once alone, Jeremy could focus on his self-loathing uninterrupted before Ceridwen had a chance to come around and begin blaming herself as well. Dwight reached forward, mustering all the strength he had ever known both physically and mentally. He pictured in the back of his mind what was to follow for the next few moments, but always found himself drawn in paralyzing fear to the image of Ceridwen in lycan form. If his form was anything similar to hers, then it was no wonder average people collapsed in fear at the sight of him. He forced all the images away, deciding it better to act on instinct rather than plan at the moment since that would be exactly how his opponent would behave. He drew in a sharp breath and grasped the handle, waiting for a moment of silence from behind the door before opening it. As the door creaked open, Dwight noted that there was nothing behind it. He narrowed his eyes and examined the darkness carefully. Nothing, neither the glow of her eyes nor the outline of her body, was visible to him. As he relaxed his senses and moved forward, a flash of black fur and a loud barrage of hissing sped past him. Dwight cried out in agony as he felt four enormous wounds form on his arm. Ceridwen's claws had embedded themselves and ripped free in long gashes within nanoseconds. She moved more quickly than any creature he had ever seen. He grasped his arm, feeling pain and anger take precious energy from him. He recognized this feeling. It would be only a matter of hours before an uncontrollable rage overtook him and forced him to kill anything in sight.

He knelt, clutching his maimed limb gingerly. Through a mist of red, he could hear the operatives shouting to one another and Jeremy. Dwight concentrated his energy into his eyes, trying to determine what his next course of action should be. As his vision became clear enough to discern, he saw Ceridwen, a grotesque and gorgeous creature combination of young woman and black cat, standing a few feet away from him and only inches away from her brother. Her tail twitched back and forth in irritation and she growled in sheer hatred, but made no other movements whatsoever. She seemed affixed on the sight of Jeremy. Jeremy stood perfectly still as one of the operatives raced forward and dove to the floor, jamming the needle into her thigh on the way down. Ceridwen howled in pain as the man rolled away from her; coming to a halt beside Dwight. The two watched the girl crumple in unconsciousness. Jeremy caught her quickly, not allowing more than three feet between her body and the ground as she fell into the drug-induced sleep. Dwight breathed deeply as Jeremy gave orders to take Ceridwen to the infirmary and send for their father immediately. The operative beside Dwight rose and quickly began helping his partner take Ceridwen back up the stairs. Jeremy moved towards Dwight, staring above him in utter bewilderment. The haze over the young vampire cleared slightly.

"What is it? What has you so dumbfounded?" Dwight asked softly.

"Sh-she didn't attack," Jeremy muttered. He looked down at Dwight, his eyes emitting a curious glow. "Lycans attack anything in sight unless they've fed. There was nothing for her to feed on. She wasn't vicious, she just stood there."

"You are her brother," Dwight reasoned. "Part of her must have recognized that."

"Lycans can't recognize family, they don't remember," Jeremy muttered quietly. "She didn't attack me. She isn't like any of the others we've treated together."

"How many times has she attacked someone?" Dwight asked as he groaned and tried to stand.

Jeremy turned and grabbed him harshly by the arm; helping him stand, but only in as much as to glare hatefully at him. "Ceridwen's never attacked anyone like that before," he snapped. "She's never transmorphed fully, not like that. She has gone very wild, like that time she tore into you, but she's never had this happen before....ever."

"I could tell. She was not as accustomed to stalking and attacking prey as any other creature," Dwight said as he pulled away from Jeremy and grasped his arm in a cry of pain. He breathed cautiously through clenched teeth. If he didn't feed soon, Jeremy's fate would be sealed where Ceridwen had just failed. "She will be fine."

"I have no doubt about that," Jeremy muttered.

He grabbed Dwight by the arm once again, pulling him towards the stairs and then towards his room. Dwight found it hard to see and comprehend the passage of time as Jeremy led him to his room and left for a moment to get a dose of blood. He felt his features lose all strength and found himself lying in an awkward position on the bed. Jeremy must have arrived only a few minutes later. Dwight opened his eyes, not realizing that consciousness had left him, as Jeremy was holding the container of blood to his mouth. Dwight's eyes began to glow an unnatural hungry red. He quickly snatched the package away from Jeremy, holding the precious fluid with great relief. The cool, thick life-force filled him with the promise of survival and rest. He breathed deeply, flaring his nostrils with delight as the last few satisfying drops of whole blood coursed over his tongue. He threw the container to the side, panting heavily and enjoying the feel of strength returning to every nerve once again. He looked around the room, noticing that Jeremy still sat waiting. He sighed and nodded to him, feeling yet another stab of pain rip through the injured flesh on his arm. Jeremy stood and walked towards him, handing him a second dose of blood.

"I am satiated for the time being," Dwight replied dismissively. Jeremy grabbed Dwight's good hand and placed the container in it.

"For now, but you were pretty weak a moment ago. One dose wouldn't do it. Drink that before I get back with the medical equipment," Jeremy commanded.

Dwight felt too complacent with contentment to argue at the moment. As the door closed behind Jeremy, Dwight felt an electric twinge move through him at a disturbing realization. The blood had tasted delicious and felt satisfying, refreshing, almost enjoyable. At any other moment, it would have made him slightly ill. Even the thought of taking this second dose now was nauseating. Was that the precursor to his sprees? Did he truly lose himself to an animal that delighted in blood-letting? He had never remembered losing control. He furrowed his brow as he forced himself to drink the second dose. He didn't want to allow that scenario to happen again, but he needed to know whether or not what he thought was a normal part of the food web was, in fact, simply another blood-thirsty monster like many of the humans he destroyed. Jeremy returned quickly and set to work treating and bandaging Dwight's arm.

"I think Ceridwen might have been injured on the door," Dwight said.

"They're looking at her right now. Our nurse says that Ceridwen's medicine levels were basically what they should have been," Jeremy said shaking his head.

"What does that mean?" Dwight asked, trying his best to ignore the pain.

"It means that the moon phases alone weren't enough to change her," Jeremy explained. "Either someone did something to her or she reacted to something that has affected her virus violently in the past."

"And you think I am behind either?" Dwight asked in amusement.

"Actually, no." Jeremy reached back down, withdrawing something that Dwight couldn't quite make out. He grabbed the vampire's chin, forcing his head to the side. Dwight complied, but found this a little odd since his neck had, thankfully, not been injured at all. "As powerful as you are, you don't have what it takes to bring out the worst in her," Jeremy said in an almost disappointed tone.

Dwight felt a sharp sting on his neck. He grunted in pain and shoved Jeremy away from him, instinctively. Jeremy smiled.

"What was that?" Dwight demanded. Surely Jeremy hadn't just reactivated the chip. That felt nothing like it had in the past.

"That was a pain-killer. It'll send you right off to sleep," he explained. "I'll be back when you're due to feed again. Ceridwen says you're still fragile, so don't over-exert yourself, or _I'll_ kill you. Rest. Ceridwen will be fine in the morning."

Dwight barely heard the last few words from the youth's mouth as the room began to grow dark and warm. His head fell backwards, hitting the pillow as his consciousness drifted above him. He replayed all of the events and words of the evening, trying to make sense of it all and compute it properly. One phrase kept repeating more than all the others and brought him a satisfaction that he hadn't expected. _As powerful as you are, you don't have what it takes to bring out the worst in her_, he heard over and over again. He smiled brightly as he stepped into a dream. He might have been a blood-thirsty monster, but at least he was not a cad.


	8. Desideratum

Chapter 8: Desideratum

Dwight wandered in darkness for less than a moment before he found himself back in the dream realm that usually answered his questions and allowed him to speak most freely with Ceridwen. He breathed heavily as he watched the silhouettes of buildings and people take firm shape in front of him. Colour began to fill each figure with every breath he took. Soon, the illustrated beings and structures were alive and moving around as if he had been the one to stumble in on their activities. He gathered his thoughts and set them neatly in a corner of his consciousness as he moved forward. He was not in the usual classroom that he had been transported to many times before. Instead, he found himself standing in a small piazza where several students sat murmuring about their studies around an enormous fountain. He smiled. It was at this very place that he had learned exactly what Ceridwen was in the first place. He frowned at remembering that he had only recently discovered exactly what Ceridwen could become. He shook away the emotions that began filling him with the memory of only moments past and went to find the girl. If he was going to get all the information he needed about himself before leaving then he would need to make sure that Ceridwen was the one administering it. She seemed too wrapped up in trying to keep him alive to see what he was truly feeling; this would be something he could fully use to his advantage. As he strode through the covered walkways and into the largest building labeled 'Kittery Academy Library', he noticed that the usual sun he had been overjoyed to see in these dreams was now overshadowed by thick clouds. The clouds were not at all typical rain-bearing strata, but instead held the acrid dinge of foul pollutants. He felt himself nearly gag at the sight. One of the reasons Dwight had steered more to the north and to smaller airports was because of his hatred for smog and other natural vices of city life. He was fairly sure that he could have managed moving around among large international and intercontinental airports as well as he did at the smaller, but he couldn't be sure. The more cautious and mature portion of himself felt it too dangerous to try. He walked through the massive stone archway and pulled the brass-ring handle on one of the magnificently large, polished oak doors. As he fully entered the building, he ran headlong into someone.

"Hey!" he exclaimed as he stumbled backward. "Watch where you are going, you clumsy..."

The youth's reprimand was cut short when he opened his eyes and realized exactly who he had bumped. The professor from the other dreams lifted one brow and stared at him reprovingly.

"Talking to yourself, Mr Wrenn? Or do you need to finish what you were saying to _me_?" the timeless educator said with a smirk.

Dwight felt all of the blood in his body rush hurriedly to his cheeks as they reddened with embarassment.

"Excuse me, sir," he muttered automatically. If nothing else, he was a gentleman. He would not have anyone believe that his mother had raised anything less. The professor folded his arms and stared down at the young form of the vampire with a half smile. "I was looking for..."

"Your research partner? I should hope so. She's been in that library by herself for the past few weeks doing her work and yours. That term paper has to have _both _your names and input to count on the final grade, young man," the elder said sternly. "You don't want her failing an assignment because of you, do you?"

"No, sir," Dwight replied softly.

Even though he knew that he was not an adolescent boy and that this man was not a true authority figure, his subconscious refused to relenquish the aire of propriety that he had been taught repeatedly to observe, specifically at this age. The man nodded and began to walk slowly past him and down the steps towards the rest of the school. Dwight growled softly and made his way into the nearly silent library where Ceridwen was surely waiting for him. He passed huge rows of towering groups of shelves. This reminded him of the library at home as well as pictures he had made in his mind of enormous libraries mentioned in classic novels. Large marble busts of philosophers, musicians, poets, composers, playwrights, and even a few historic rulers sat atop small pedastals at the end of each row. Above the heads were bronze plaques labeling what was held in the books that lay on the row. Most of them were all too familiar; fiction, history, reference, improvements, language, classics, and so on. He walked for what seemed like a day and a half through the hallways of knowledge, now seeing more bizarre titles on the plaques; favourites, teen years, hopes, strange dreams, recipes not to repeat, and lessons learned away from home. He furrowed his brow and took one of the books from the strange dreams row. It was bound in opalescent green and bore the title 'snake bombs' which was embossed in silvery letters on the front cover. Hesitantly, he opened the cover.

The world around him shifted violently like a single tremor from an earthquake. He reached out to grasp one of the shelves to steady himself. He now realized that he was standing in the middle of someone else's home, the living room to be exact. Before he could look closely at any of the objects or photographs to determine whose domicile he had been transferred to, he heard childish shouting behind him. He whirled around, gasping at the sight of the two children that were shouting at one another. Though he wasn't quite sure how he knew who they were, his mind told him that these children were Jeremy and Ceridwen. He could recognize their eyes, but they seemed so different at the moment. Jeremy couldn't have been any older than eight and Ceridwen appeared to be a toddler again. He found himself more confused than ever. Had the book transported him, or had Ceridwen's mind shifted and forced him into some other part of her? He frowned and moved towards her, reaching one hand out as Jeremy shouted an insult. Out of nowhere, Ceridwen reached behind her and withdrew a large rattlesnake. Shouting back at her brother, she raised her arm and hurled the snake right at him. Dwight watched in horror as the reptile flew through the air, swelling unnaturally as it neared the boy's head. Just as the snake was about to descend in a swollen mess of hissing and flailing onto Jeremy's hair, it burst. The boom caught Dwight off guard and he felt himself fall to the ground. The snake had simply exploded! There were no entrails or bits of flesh still lingering from it, either. It had simply popped like a balloon. Jeremy growled at her, shouting another insult and reaching behind his own back. He withdrew a large boa constrictor and hurled it like a ball at his sister. Ceridwen stood firmly, watching it swell and hurtle toward her as well. The enormous, round boa then exploded in a louder boom than the rattler. Dwight watched in further amazement as Ceridwen simply reached behind her and withdrew yet another snake.

"Stop it!" he yelled thoughtlessly.

The familiar sound of water rushing around him suddenly filled his ears and his vision blurred momentarily. He gasped, suddenly feeling overwhelmed and short of breath. He felt as though he were drowning in some invisible pool. He groaned and struggled for the surface, feeling his mind flailing endlessly while his body responded with only a slight jerk every now and again. Seconds later, he broke through the surface of the pool, gasping for breath. It suddenly struck him that he had simply been standing perfectly still with the book this whole time. He looked down at it for a brief moment before slamming the cover shut and tossing it across the hallway of shelves. The book skidded to a halt before lifting up on its binding and hopping back towards the place it had sat waiting a few moments ago. It leapt gracefully back onto the shelf and scooted snugly into its resting place. Dwight cringed and glared harshly at it for a moment. He hated being confused and he hated dreams that made no sense what so ever.

"It never had any meaning to me, either," a voice behind him said suddenly. He jumped and turned, now staring into the face of the person he had been looking for. Ceridwen reached past him and gently ran her fingers over the scaly spine of the book. "I looked it up in hordes of books for weeks trying to make heads or tails of it, but it just never clicked. I guess it was one of those dreams that tells you your mind is cleaning house."

"Housework, especially that of the mind, is not for me," Dwight said indignantly. He suddenly raised a brow at her in curiosity. "Why are you not angry that I just saw one of your dreams?"

She shrugged and turned to walk away. Dwight moved after her, listening and gathering all the words he would need for the questions he had.

"You're in one of them right now. I'm not threatened by you, Dwight," she said casually. She stopped and turned to him for a moment, rubbing one arm pensively. "At least not when I'm in my right mind."

Dwight cocked one brow in confusion. Ceridwen sighed, shaking her head in both disappointment and frustration. Clearly, the episode that had shown her own evils had made her aware of how fragile she truly was. He started forward as she turned to walk away. The two walked silently down the main hall of the library and back into the study lounge. The area that Ceridwen had been using a moment earlier was painfully obvious to him. He smiled as he noticed the enormous pile of open books, loose pieces of paper, several pencils, one pen, and a small bottle of tea. Scribbles of information were clearly visible on each separate leaf of paper, giving him the impression that the professor had been right; Ceridwen had done enough work for the both of them. He slowly moved to the pile and picked up one of the sheets, examining her writing.

"_The Desiderata_?" he read aloud. "Is this what our assignment was?"

"If you had taken the time to read the paper he gave us a few dreams ago you would know that," she muttered as she carefully took the paper from him.

"You are still quite testy. Is the moon a factor in your dreams as well?" he asked with a laugh. Ceridwen's expression fell. Dwight could have sworn that he heard a loud thump as her heart dropped to the floor and shattered. He silenced himself and frowned, clearing his throat. Ceridwen hated to be reminded of her illness more than he did. She had never been forced to face it in the same manner. He sighed and reached for her hand, trying to make sure that the line of open communication between them was still healthy. Ceridwen stepped away, plopping down onto the nearest seat. "I apologize. I hardly see why this should trouble you. Surely with all of your intuition and reasoning you would have resigned yourself to episodes such as this every now and again. There is always the slim chance that you wouldn't be able to take the proper amount of serum when…"

"It wasn't the medicine!" Ceridwen exclaimed. Dwight took a defensive step backwards as she breathed heavily. She calmed herself and looked to the side, clearly fighting tears away. "That kind of reaction was far too intense for it to have been a simple miscalculation of the serum. I have never had a reaction that caused me to attack like that. I have only ever… transformed… five times before and each time saw me giving the nearest person a small wound and then passing out in agony."

"Then how do you explain your attack on me a few days after first arriving here?" he asked curtly. Ceridwen was not a hardened murderer by any means, but she was not better than he was. It was disgusting to see her trying to lift her view of herself above anyone else with the virus, or so he thought. "That was hardly a small wound."

"I believe that I already explained that to you, Dwight," she replied with slight irritation as she picked up a small stack of the paper and the pen. "Your heightened hormones, my stress, and the obvious natural reaction to the moon caused that little fiasco."

"Then perhaps that is exactly what is happening again," he offered casually.

"Hardly," she muttered. "I might have been unconscious, but I could hear the nurse speaking to Jeremy. She told him that my blood panel showed a normal amount of the medicine in me. In order for it to make a difference in the issue of my transforming I would have needed to forget to take it for several days. There was some kind of adjuvant causing the lycangrophine to spread through my system like that. Some other influence that I'm not aware of."

Dwight stared at her, realizing that she was just as confused as he was for the first time that he could recall. Having seen a great deal of her memories through her blood months before, he was aware of the fact that Ceridwen was not at all accustomed to being mistaken in the least.

"Can you think of anything that would cause that?" he asked. "When you have researched these viruses, what have you seen that would have caused this type of stimuli?"

Ceridwen turned a shade of pink and looked down, closing her eyes for a moment as she tried to put her thoughts into words.

"I – I haven't really studied feline lycanthropy," she muttered.

"What?!" Dwight exclaimed. He stood immediately, forcing every object in his lap to drop to the floor instantly. Ceridwen turned away ashamedly.

"I know how the disease works, transfers, survives, and how it compares to all the other preternatural diseases I've studied, but nothing beyond that," she said sadly. Dwight's eyes took an almost angry tone as he stared at her. "I know how vampiricism and lycanthropy are related and I know something about the virus that many vampires would kill to uncover and utilize, but I do not know much of the details myself about my condition as it were."

"Then who, in God's name, treats your illness and keeps up with it?!" he shouted.

"Why else do you think my brother is accompanying me?" she said with a shrug. He frowned and turned away.

"How do you expect me to trust the information of someone that cannot help herself?" he asked near shaking with anger. How dare this girl lecture him on proper behavior and living with the illness if she was unlearned in her own anomalies! He growled softly and clenched his fist next to his head, grasping a lock of his own raven hair in his hand. He had done this many times as a young man, when upset, to comfort himself. His mother and father had discouraged angry outbursts so frequently during his infancy that it he had developed a natural desire to suppress rage immediately. His mother had found the gesture charming, but others that had seen it had used it as a weapon for mockery. He breathed deeply, trying to piece together some sort of collage of insults and an escape plan that didn't involve too much in the way of bloodshed. His eyes glowed crimson for a moment. It was about time Ceridwen saw what he was truly capable of. Even during their last skrimmage, she hadn't been able to catch a full view of his potential. He turned to her, glaring coldly. "I should have known that you could offer me no more than the books that I have read and the people that have spoken to me in the few quiet moments before their demise."

Ceridwen winced slightly as he hissed the last few words. She gulped and stood, facing him as he began to transform into the older version of himself that could be seen in waking hours as well. He flared his nostrils and moved closer to her. She seemed to be literally shrinking in front of him.

"Dwight, there will not be anyone else that will give you the opportunity that I can let alone the knowledge and comfort. Try and see it from my point of view. I've studied your condition and many others as a student of medicine for some time. I really don't see the point in delving too deeply into my own..." she began calmly.

Dwight roared loudly. Ceridwen jumped backwards and stared up at him in terror. While he hadn't transmorphed into vampiric form, he was glowing with anger and pulsing with hunger. This time the hunger was not for physical fulfilment or even simply blood; the hunger was calling out for justice which he believed had been tossed aside in this instance. She gulped and breathed rapidly as he leaned over her.

"Did no one ever read scripture to you, little girl? Have you not ever heard the adage 'physician heal thyself'? You are no disciple of Hippocrates, you are simply a hypocrite!" Dwight moved forward a step as Ceridwen scooted backwards. He smiled. She had displayed fear of him infrequently, but the displays that she had made showed him that she was, indeed, afraid of him. He snarled, roaring once again as she leaned forward and covered her ears. He stood upright, feeling his form change back to smaller once again while the pleasure of seeing her begin to tremble soothed him. The full rush of power had ebbed. "I had a mind to stay here a while to humour you. I had a heart to pity your pathetic droning and silly theories in the hopes that they might somehow aide me. You can offer me nothing, Ceridwen Nistuart, further than the frequent frustrations that you seem to offer all those around you. It simply amazes me that Jeremiah has not given in to human temptation and put you in your rightful place as both a woman and a creature. When you wake, I will be long departed. You hardly deserve even the release of death for your insolence!"

Ceridwen removed her hands from her ears and stared at him harshly. Her eyes began to glow a familiar green/yellow. Dwight felt his own heart twist in slight fear as the smell of an angry animal now filled his nostrils. He gulped and stood firmly. Ceridwen was not going to win out in this. There was no reason that he, an aged vampire, should be frightened or harmed by an essentially infantile she-cat. She stood slowly and snarled, curling her lips away from her lengthened razor-like fangs for a split second. His jaw quivered a moment as her ears extended into pointed feline appendages once again. Rather than lunge forward or crouch in preparation for an attack, she simply turned her scowl into a smile. She chuckled softly.

"Perhaps you hear this all the time, Dwight, or perhaps you say it more often than hear it; you and I have much in common. More than our ailments unite us, _little boy_," she said. She spoke slowly and deliberately, articulating each word as if her fingers grazed his throat and she were bringing the point of each nail to his warm flesh with each syllable uttered. He shuddered for a moment, feeling an invisible cold hand at the base of his spine. "We are frightened, you and I. We are nothing more than children trembling before the powers that hold us prisoner. Yes, I know little of my disease by comparison to what I know of yours, but I know enough of mine to live among a family comfortably. Tell me, would you have ever been able to look your father in the eye while transformed?" Dwight growled, now feeling the same power and heat rush to him as before. His countenance changed ever so slightly, but enough to allow the presence of his fangs as well. Ceridwen smiled and moved an inch closer. "Would you have been able to embrace your sweet mother, or would you have acted above her screaming and torn her to pieces as well, feasting on the precious fluids that gave you life as she slipped mercifully into an eternity free of you?!"

Dwight roared once again and lunged forward, pinning Ceridwen against the floor and snarling madly into her face. She hissed and howled back, grasping him behind each elbow as he held her and throwing him painfully to the side. He grunted and climbed to his knees as she stood and crouched, leaning toward the opposite side. He lowered himself as well, stepping towards the right as she moved towards the left.

"I have never harmed an innocent!" he rasped.

"Truly? Only criminals in all your life?" Ceridwen chuckled wickedly. She stared directly into his eyes, bringing both of them to a hypnotic halt. "Then what was the crime of the Sarch woman? Hmm? What atrocity did she commit before you ended her? Or what about that sweet little nine-year old at Wilmington? What did the little girl do to deserve a violent death?!"

"Ignorant liar!" he growled and stepped forward.

"Heartless murderer!" she spat back. As the two flew toward one another and almost locked bodies in combat, a loud voice from behind them broke their concentration.

"Stop this nonsense right now!" a large and rather stern looking woman yelled from a few feet away. The two froze in place, transforming back to school children as they stared in shock at the librarian. Both turned bright red in instinctive embarassment. "Get back to your studies right now or leave this library permanently!"

"Gladly," Dwight muttered. He started towards the door, leaving Ceridwen silent and saddened by both of their displays. He frowned and hurried towards the door, struggling to wake himself. He grunted in frustration. Why wasn't he able to jar himself back to consciousness? He needed to wake and leave before Jeremy had a chance to replace the implant. He could still physically feel that he was without it at the moment. He stopped beside the fountain and closed his eyes. As he once again clenched his fist beside his face, he felt a single tear fight its way free of his eye and heart. He growled more loudly and swiped it away as though it were an insect.

"Calm down, bucko, you're going to gauge out one of your eyes if you do that too hard. You've only got two, you know," a voice near him said sarcastically. Dwight turned quickly and noticed something strange. While a young girl sitting peacefully on the edge of the fountain wasn't a strange sight, especially in this dream; the appearance of the girl was un-nervingly familiar somehow. He couldn't place it, but he had seen her features and heard her voice somewhere as well. She had hair the same tint as Ceridwen's, but it lay slightly more relaxed in a braid plaited tightly behind her head. Her clothing was similar to the girls he had seen in his day; a long, conservative black dress. She must have been no older than twelve as well, but the clothing told him that either she and he were from the same era, or she was a middle-aged woman trapped in a maiden's body. He sneered at her as she moved closer to him. "You've got issues, don't you?"

"Was there a funeral in your family or are you mourning the loss of your_ own_ youthful energy and girlish enthusiasm?" he snapped.

The girl smiled coyly and leaned near enough to bite him as harshly as he had spoken to her. He stayed perfectly still as she replied in almost a whisper.

"Actually, my coven is having a field day. Don't tell anyone, you'll scare away all the scholars' blood and virgins' spleens we'll need for our nefarious spell casting as we take over the world for our dark mistress," she replied with the same sarcasm she had used a moment before. He found himself smiling as she stepped away and positioned herself in front of him. "I'm in the drama department. We're doing a musical and I'm playing creepy old Misses Lovett."

"You certainly look the part for creepy," he retorted. He found himself now captivated by her eyes. They were almost Ceridwen's green, but the blue of the sky kept them from being an exact match. He stared more deeply. They were an exact match for his father's eyes. "Break a leg, then; I must be going."

"Not so fast," the girl said as she caught him by the arm. He stopped and stared down at her in irritation. She smiled brightly. "You and Ceridwen just can't get along when she's all moody like this, can you?"

His expression lifted to confusion. His eyes then narrowed once again.

"How did you know about that?" he growled softly.

"Not alot of things in this world are a secret, pal. In fact, count on very little privacy. You can either use that to become the paranoid comic relief for everyone else or learn not to give a hoot. Moving on, though, I think you might be able to help her through this. In fact, I think you might be able to earn your freedom if you cure her," the girl remarked.

Dwight scoffed. "There is no _cure_ for her condition and I am in no mood to come to the little tart's rescue," he huffed.

The girl's eyes glowed with defensive anger for a moment. No, perhaps it was indignation. He shook his head. She was familiar somehow, he had to have known her.

"Then think of it as an investment for you. You think she's been willing to make an exception now. If you kill her sire, then you can pretty much count on getting your flying priveleges restored," she reasoned. He stared down at her. "Oh, you didn't have any, right? Well count on recieving that and a plethora of other blessings from her, Jeremy, and Stephen."

Dwight looked more inquisitively into the girl's eyes. She was being truthful and had nothing short of full confidence in her words.

"Her sire? You think she is reacting to the creature that turned her? That is impossible, it was her father that attacked her and made her ill," Dwight replied.

"He had to have a sire, too. This kind of outburst was without her medication being too greatly altered, and that means recieving it at low levels for a couple of months not just a few weeks, means that the original virus is nearby and is in need of assistance. That's how these things work, you know, like a satellite command system," the girl said with a casual shrug. Dwight's eyes drifted for a moment. The girl's words were a little difficult to believe, this was too simple and certainly not something he was outright concerned with. He frowned as his vision began to blur. The girl smiled kindly. "Think about it for a day, or night rather, and talk to me again. Ask Ceri a few questions, she'll tell you."

Dwight perked up slightly at the girl using Ceridwen's nickname. He hadn't even asked this girl her name or what this connection was that she obviously had to him. He growled loudly as the campus shifted back to his bedroom in the waking world. The growl became an audible cry as his eyes opened. He sat upright and breathed heavily. This business of having a whole other world of people to keep track of in dreams was driving him mad. He grunted and sat on the edge of his bed, gathering his thoughts to form sensible pictures and questions. Suddenly, the door opened. Dwight stood and felt breath and blood leave his body entirely as Ceridwen entered. The same angry glow from earlier still lingered in her eyes. His heart twisted painfully as he noted that they reflected brightly off of the remnants of tears as well.


	9. Live and Let Learn

Chapter 9: Live and Let Learn

Ceridwen drew in a deep breath as Dwight stood motionless in front of her. She didn't look saddened or upset by him; she looked very angry, as if trying to hold back a swelling of fury. Dwight stepped backwards slightly, feeling instinctively afraid that she would unleash said fury on him if given the opportunity. While Dwight was immensely powerful, he remembered that Jeremiah had said something about Ceridwen's virus being stronger than his and that her powers matched the difference. That alone was enough to make even the primal entity that took him when he fed tremble with fear. Adding to that was the fact that he had just recently seen her unload pent up frustration in the form of a lycanthropic attack. She seemed to examine him wordlessly for several moments; not to see if he was alright, but to see whether or not he felt too terrified by her now. He frowned and looked back into her eyes with more resolve, trying to hide the trembling that wanted to surface in this human form and the rage that would have taken him in vampiric form.

"Good evening, Mr. Wrenn," Ceridwen said with the kind of tact that had to be learned and forced on an individual in an uncomfortable circumstance. He narrowed his eyes at her nearly glaring. "I have some texts for you to glance over before I start my first lecture tomorrow."

"Whatever you plan on saying tomorrow will hardly be your first lecture, Ceridwen," he countered. Her lips curled upward for a moment, her eyes flashing an unnatural yellow tint as a soft growl left her throat. Dwight smiled. "I take it then that your illness is just as controlled as _mine_ for the time being."

"Please be ready to ask any questions you have about the first section," she replied cooly. He opened the cover for a second, glancing over the words without really taking them in. He snorted and tossed the book to the side, watching Ceridwen's expression as it thudded to the floor with sadistic enjoyment. She breathed deeply, clearly hiding the emotion she truly wanted to express. He smirked and watched as she reached down and slipped her hand under the book, effortlessly tossing it from just above the floor to the surface of his desk. He lifted one brow in admiration. Ceridwen seemed to be a well of surprises and all of them quite amusing. "If you have nothing else to ask, then I'll see you tomorrow. Jeremiah is in charge of your medical and nutritional needs, but you should already know that. By the morning I will want at least the first chapter. . . "

"Why?" Dwight asked casually. He moved to the desk and pulled the chair from beneath the table top to where it faced Ceridwen. Sitting in one fluid movement, he could have sworn he saw fire flare from Ceridwen's hair and light the atmosphere around her.

"Because the more that you know of the illness and its history then the more. . . " she began. He waved a hand to silence her. He was beginning to more than enjoy the power he seemed to hold over this young human, or whatever she claimed to be. He crossed his arms and leaned forward.

"Why _here_? Why is your bureau, or what have you, not insisting that I be kept at some facility while you endoctrinate me?" he asked, hissing a few of the words for emphasis. Ceridwen let out a soft growl and stepped to the side, loathing his arrogance in the face of her obvious calm. "You were kept at a facility before Stephen took you home with him," he mused as he looked casually to one side. Ceridwen's louder growl told him that he was definitely touching on something that was sensitive, something that he was controlling. Perhaps if he could get her to lose her temper once again, he could take some of her willpower. "Did the bureau suggest this? If so, why? If not, why on earth would an inexperienced reformist with such a grievous malady, like yourself, insist on such an informal and unsafe environment? Why take such a great risk just to prove a few wild notions to a school of old men who really will not give much of an ear to a young woman with an illness herself? What is it really that you wanted to achieve?"

"_**Normalcy!**_" Ceridwen screamed at him. Her voice had raised to such a height within her lungs that Dwight felt himself thrown back a few feet by it. His eyes widened with both curiosity and shock at the reply. She turned and grasped both sides of her head, grunting in pain and frustration. The desire to stand just to be at the ready to defend himself moved through Dwight, but he was frozen with the other thoughts and fears racing through his mind. A strange sensation washed over him and he felt his blood turn warm with realization. There was no pain at the base of his head, no reprisal from that horrible device even in the slightest. He smiled. Jeremy must have forgotten to turn the thing back on! This was too good to be true. He would have to be silent about it and feign whatever was necessary until he could confirm it. Ceridwen's arms dropped slowly back to her sides and she breathed deeply. "I was being realistic when I called you ungrateful, Dwight. I chose this place as my station because it would be far easier for you to heal if you felt at _home_, something I have struggled with since my youth."

Guilt found its way into a dormant part of Dwight's conscience, but not for more than a fleeting second. Ceridwen walked out of the room and turned to walk back towards her own. Dwight stared out into the hallway, frowning once again at the figure that now stood waiting in the doorway.

"I really think that you are some kind of inhuman catalyst for premenstrual syndrome," Jeremy laughed. "Not that she's hormonal in that sense. You have a gift for peeving her to no end, you know that right? Why she hasn't given up and just let them kill you is still a mystery."

"Only to you, Jeremiah," Dwight muttered. "I am quite sure that in your intimate moments she has revealed to you why she is so relentless and yet so. . . complacent. Why is she choosing now to start with the academia?"

Jeremy shrugged and looked down at the book that lay on the desk. He watched Dwight move over to the enormous window and lean agains the darkened panes, peering out into the crimson void. He shook his head and opened the cover, staring down at the title and other information.

"The Beginner's Guide to Preternatural Disorders Sixth Edition. Vampiricism: The Ultimate Anemia," Jeremiah read aloud. "Not very inventive with the titles, are they?" he jested as he turned and stared at Dwight once again. Dwight hadn't moved, but his expression now appeared to be pensive, lost in deep thought. Jeremiah sighed and flipped through a few more pages. "You know, it isn't a secret to the rest of us that you don't want to be here. Why don't you just off everyone and leave? Well, everyone human; I think it's a little obvious by now that you can't do much to my sister other than totally cheese her off." Jeremy turned to glance at the young vampire once again. He frowned, disappointed that nothing he was saying seemed to be registering with the man. He sighed heavily and slammed the book shut. He turned, crossing his arms and leaned against the desk as he faced the window as well. "Or are you still afraid of what I will do to you?"

Dwight turned, finally having enough nonsense. He allowed his eyes to change slightly for the first time in months, letting out a small roar. Jeremy's expression was not fearful, but irritated. Dwight thought for a moment, glad that his thoughts seemed to move more quickly than the boy's, with reflexes to match. Without another word or expression, Dwight grabbed his head and pretended to cry out in pain for a few moments. Jeremy seemed to now be taken by relief. _Fool_, Dwight thought to himself. _Since when have I ever been that slow to register pain? _He turned back to the window, deciding it best not to let the wretch's presence be too much of a bother to him any longer. He knew that Ceridwen would be intent from this point forward at being as cordial as possible, but that this would be the best time to gather any information that he needed seeing as she was willing to offer it to him in both books and audibly. He glanced at the book behind Jeremiah for a moment, still amused that someone had written in earnest about the illness and, apparently, others as well. Jeremy set the book back onto the table and sighed heavily.

"You need to eat something; Ceridwen says you're going to need to be feeding regularly from now on if you want to think and feel normally," he said. Dwight narrowed his eyes and shook his head. Why on earth did normalcy matter to that girl so much? He had experienced what most called 'normalcy' in his childhood; two loving parents, a stable home and income, education, and despite his illness had been able to interact well among others. Normalcy was nothing impressive or enjoyable. Jeremy walked towards him for a moment. "I'll bring it to you again. Ceridwen wants you to read that now. Maybe you'll think about things a little differently if you know exactly what it is that posesses you."

"I am not posessed, Jeremiah," Dwight hissed with hatred beginning to burn in his eyes. Jeremy stared at him with curiosity. The young vampire had heard countless times from his victims the cries that he was a servant of the devil, posessed by a demon or by Lucifer himself. He hated to hear such things and hated even more to think that people exsisted that still thought this way. Just because someone was traversing a different path did not make them evil or possessed, no matter what they needed to survive. He sighed and grasped the side of the window pensively. "I am consumed. Understanding the illness, as you and your pedantic little sister call it, is the only reason I am still here. Ceridwen will grow weary of me after a few weeks; she cannot possibly keep this nonsense of trying to reform me, or for that matter any others like myself. I cannot fathom anyone else conforming to such a lifestyle for any other reason than being forced into it."

"That's because you have the brain of a small rodent. For your information, Dracula, there have been a little over a hundred fully reformed vampiric cases since the process began," Jeremy said proudly as he turned to leave the room. "Granted that's not alot considering the process has been going on for more than fifty years, but it's something for people like Ceri to keep busy with," he muttered under his breath as he slipped out of the room. Dwight snorted at him. Jeremiah was more of an annoyance than Ceridwen. Compared to the boy, Ceridwen was a delight. At thinking this, his shoulder began to ache terribly. He grunted and gripped his arm tightly, willing the pain to subside as firmly as possible. How on earth had she been able to do that much damage to him? He was a far more experienced and far more vicious creature than she would ever be. He furrowed his brow and picked up the book out of curiosity once again. Perhaps once he had all of the answers he needed from texts, he could slip away and never have to associate himself with people like them any further than getting a meal. He opened the cover and flipped a few pages past the introduction, staring cautiously at the words. The first page explained the name and nature of the disease and read:

Vladislaus Cel Mircea Syndrome _**VCMS**_ (vla'disl-ow-s che-l meer-chi-ah): a condition that is quintessentially a disease of the endocrine, autonomic nervous, immune/lymph, and cardiovascular systems. The condition was named for the Wallachian nobleman Vlad Basarab of the house of Mircea (otherwise known as Vlad Dracula or Vlad Tepes, the Impaler). Each of the five branches of this disease vary in strength and length from case to case and from strain to strain of the illness. In the long run, the patient will need to ingest blood on a bi-daily basis, avoid triggers to other types of trauma (sunlight, emotional upsets, overheating, dehydration, etc...), and recieve lacking nutrients. Most commonly given to victims are vitamins D, E, B12, and iron. The five diseases that create this illness are as follows:

1. cytopenic anemia : condition of blood marked by defficiencies in _erhythrocytes_ (red blood cells), _leukocytes_ (white blood cells), and _thrombocytes_ (platelets) as well as plasma fluids; caused by damage to lymph nodes, marrow, veins, and organs from severe toxic trauma.

2. polyadenopathy : a number of malfunctions in the endocrine system marked by insufficient secretions of hormones, changes in hormones secreted, and the destruction of certain glands entirely.

3. photophobia : the inability to be in sunlight without severe damage to eyes or other parts of the body.

4. dysautonomia : improper functioning of the autonomic nervous system; can be hyperactive at times or non-exsistant at others.

5. anatrophic genostenosis : the lack of growth or nutrition to cell matter in the body stops the process of aging or development for a period of time (usually between 500 to 700 years) depending on the nature of the infection.

His eyes grew wide as he found himself now interested in what all of these terms meant and how they all connected in the body. Had Ceridwen been a student of medicine as well? That would have taken years and she certainly didn't look like she could have completed medical and preternatural training in her short life. He turned a few more pages looking at the vocabulary section of the chapter review. These terms were still defined without explanation as to what part of the phrase meant what. He frowned. He had hoped that a few days of being explained history and mythology would be all that the education included. It seemed that he would be schooled in medicine by the end of all of this. Still, to think that he had knowledge that his victims would not seemed enough reason to stay. He read carefully and took in every word, wondering aloud about the pronounciations and usages. This would have been somewhat interesting even had he not been a vampire.

**Vocabulary to Remember:**

_erhythrocytopenia_ (deficient red blood cells/haem/hemoglobin)

_leukocytopenia_ (deficient white blood cells/lymph)

_thrombocytopenia_ (deficient platelets/clotting factor)

_hydropenia_ (dehydration/ deficiency of water)

_erhythrotonin_ (produced instead of melatonin)

_albinin_ (produced instead of melanin)

_**adrenalectomy**_ : risky and edgy proceedure in which the adrenal cortex is removed to prevent violent outbursts; outlawed in 1974 due to ineffectiveness and cruelty laws.

_**lobotomy **_: proceedure in which a portion of the brain is cut into to take away symptoms of rage, depression, psychosis, or neurosis; still legal in extreme cases where reformation has failed and the government still desires the life of the victim to remain intact.

_**adenoectomy**_ : useless glands are removed after irreparable damage has been done.

_**plasma exchange/blood transfusion**_ : in cases where the victim is less than 24 hours past initial infection, a transfusion, or exchange of fluids, has been proven to extend the possibility of recieving the cure.

_**hemophagia**_ : the process of feeding a victim doses of blood.

A small piece of paper had been slipped in between the last page of the chapter review and the first page of the second chapter. He reached down and took it casually, unfolding it and reading what must have been a forgotten personal note from the last reader. He froze and stared at the writing carefully. The last user might not have been doing research at the very time they had written this note, at least not about vampiricism. He held on to the paper as he carefully set the open book back on the desk. The writing was not at all familiar to him, but it might become familiar over the next few days. His expression changed from fully agitated to resolute and pleased as he re-read the writing.

Dwight,

You were right about my credentials, soI will do my own research if you will do the same. Read this and take in all you can. Perhaps when I understand more of what I can become, then you will believe in what you can become.

Sincerity,

Ceridwen

He smiled slightly. He had been able to manipulate Ceridwen's moods and thinking in a small way over the past few months, but she had also seemed to be able to do the same. It infuriated and fascinated him that both of them, being both taken by similarly powerful illnesses, had the ability to twist the other's ideas or feelings with words or looks. He set the paper down and looked through the three small drawers on the desk. He had never really explored what had been in them to begin with, but he theorized that Ceridwen would have left him some sort of writing utensil and paper as well. He smiled as he saw a neatly arranged row of gel-ink pens. He had seen these in passing at some of the airfields; they were usually carried by artists or intellectuals from what he could smell and see of them. He quickly took one of the pens and turned the paper over, writing his own note quickly. He turned towards the hallway and breahted deeply. Ceridwen's room was usually unattended by anyone else and it seemed at the moment that not even Jeremiah was near her. Given the recent outburst, he would have expected someone to be with her tending to her the way that she had tended to him upon first arriving and after the incident at the warehouse. He frowned and began to walk towards the library/bedroom that Ceridwen had claimed as her own. Silently, he knelt and folded the paper quickly before slipping it under her door. He tapped the door twice calmly before striding carefully into the rest of the mansion. He wanted to see a little more of his home now that others had taken over its care, which he had been unable or unwilling to do for some time since his arrival. As his form disappeared down the hallway, Ceridwen rose from the chair where she sat and looked at the door, listening carefully to determine whether or not Dwight was in the mood for pleasant conversation. She furrowed her brow in confusion at hearing him leave as quickly as he had arrived. Her bright green eyes suddenly caught sight of the small paper lying on the floor. She moved forward, kneeling and sweeping it up in one motion. As she unfolded the paper, a grin spread from ear to ear. This was what she had been hoping to see in person during the lecture, but it excited her to see it on paper for now. There was only one word written, but it gave her more satisfaction than any lengthy note describing his sorrow and wish to cooperate would have;

**Agreed.**


	10. Course Overview

Chapter 10: Course Overview

Dwight clutched the vampiric manual close to him as he neared the library. Now that he knew exactly where he was, he was able to find the memories to get around without being heard; something he had practiced to perfection in his youth. He grinned at remembering the countless instances as a boy where he had come into the 'formal library' to read in the middle of the night when his parents weren't aware. He dabbled in literature ranging from foreign zoology, engineering, philosophy, all the way to cutting edge fictions that he begged his father to purchase like The Hobbit. Dwight had found freedom from illness in fictions as a youth. He had been many men as a boy that Ceridwen had probably never heard of. He opened the door slowly and peeked in with anticipation. The state of the manor as well as his lack of past senses had made him unaware of the house's identity until he had seen the handle on the cellar door. As he stepped inside he breathed deeply, inhaling the reverent silence of this sanctuary of the mind. The walls, where visible, were oak lined with white carved oddities at the facings. The shelves were fine oak that had been well kept in his absence. He marveled at how well the shelves were still stocked. Either Ceridwen and her companions had taken great care to restore this house to a modicum of the splendor that it had once seen, or they had acquired it from someone with similar sophistication to his family. The later was more likely. He glanced around quickly, noting that Ceridwen had not yet arrived. He turned towards the set of shelves for authors T-W. He strode quietly to the shelf and felt a small twinge of childlike warmth move through him at such memories. He stood in front of a familiar section of the shelves and peered in.

"Where are you? I know there must be at least one of yours here," he thought aloud as he softly stroked the tops of several books in succession. "Twain, Tolstoy, ah! Here you are." The young vampire's eyes ignited with a thousand mixed emotions and thoughts, though all related in some wonderful way. He pulled a copy of The Hobbit from the shelf and looked over it carefully. It was not the one he had read in his youth, but the story was the same. Unlikely weakling saves the day, a perfect message for a lonely young aristocrat suffering from a crippling disease. The polio had gone into remission after only three diligent years of care, but the after effects were staggering. Still, the pages of books like this one had offered more than the solace any counselor or friend might have. Here he was not crippled, wealthy, or young. He was Tarzan, Alan Quatermain, Sir Francis Drake, Huck Finn, and Bilbo Baggins all in turn. Yes, these novels shaped the young man that had become Dwight Wrenn. His expression fell as another thought entered his mind. All the heroes that had been his comforts as a boy; what he had truly become was nothing like any of them. He closed his eyes for a moment, nearly mourning his own future lost so many years ago. Again, it simply wasn't fair.

"He's written hordes more since that one, you know," Ceridwen said from a few feet behind, breaking the pity trying to consume him. He sighed heavily and slipped the book back onto the shelf. The girl moved closer to him, cautiously gauging what it was that he was thinking and feeling. "I always preferred Lewis, myself. He wasn't as long-winded as Tolkien. I suppose Tolkien loved to read his own works so much that he tried to fill all his time in adding more."

"Since when are you an expert on classical literature? I have yet to see you prepare a work that would shadow this man's genius," Dwight replied sternly and defensively. Ceridwen stared at him in confusion and stepped backwards. He frowned. "Then again, all art is essentially subjective and there are no superiors."

"That aside, did you read the first chapter?" she asked as she moved towards a conversational table with two chairs. Dwight slowly joined her, sitting silently and setting the book down in front of him.

"The first three," he said opening the cover and glancing at it again. Ceridwen gasped in amazement.

"In one day, while sleeping as well?" she said stunned.

Dwight smiled. "I read very quickly," he explained.

"But the medical terms," Ceridwen said as she took the book from him, "Didn't you need time to grasp the first set of vocabulary?"

"I took Latin as a boy, Miss Nistuart," he replied with a shrug. "It bored me so, but I suppose it came in handy in the end."

"Well, then," she said as a smile began to cross her face. "You understand essentially what the disease does?"

Dwight glanced to the side and nodded. "It depletes tissues necessary to produce blood, the marrow specifically, in order to create a gland above the spleen that will produce the antibodies for the virus itself."

"Actually, only part of it is a virus," Ceridwen said scooting the book back to him. "The other is a parasitic invasion that reaches the hypothalamus while the victim is in their first stasis, that time where you're healing after being attacked. The other is a virus type organism that sets itself up on the spleen and creates its own gland to produce the antibodies and antigens necessary to keep the parasite in check."

"And where did the parasite come from?" Dwight asked with one brow raised. Ceridwen smiled so brightly that Dwight could have sworn he saw fangs protrude beneath her full lips.

"That, Mr. Wrenn is what I have been trying to prove to my colleagues and superiors back at headquarters for three years. No one has really known what it was, you see, only that it somewhat mirrored lycanthropy. I had to do a lot of digging and abstract thinking to piece together the theory itself and my sister helped me come to the hypothetical conclusion I'm working from right this very minute!" the girl explained with enthusiasm Dwight had not before seen in her. He leaned forward, still waiting to hear what exactly caused or created the parasite. Ceridwen looked around carefully and then leaned in even closer, motioning for him to lean in as close as possible. She had now lowered her excited voice to a whisper. "You see, in order for it to be a type of lycanthropy it would need to affect the body symptomatically, somatically that is, when the creature transmitting the disease would have hormonal surges. Mammals go into heat and therefore phase with the moon which is why people like me have to be cautious under phases of full and new moons. We experience changes then."

"I thought that it was only under a full moon that a werewolf became a werewolf, or as in your case, a werecat," Dwight interjected.

Ceridwen laughed melodically in amusement. "Not at all! The largest swings have a sway over lycan hormones and those are the new _and_ full moons. That's neither here nor there, the point is, the creature would need to be in a different phylum of animal altogether Before the past ten years, the phylum I'm studying wasn't even classified, really."

"Why on earth not?" Dwight asked in astonishment. What kinds of creatures had been discovered in the past decade? Certainly nothing monumental. Ceridwen smiled even brighter. Now Dwight was sure he could see fangs, though not those of a classical vampire.

"They weren't believed to exist at all!" she whispered in a near squeal. Her enthusiasm was quite amusing at this point. She was positively quivering with all the excitement of a newly blossomed teenage girl telling her best friend about the boy she liked that actually liked her back. She scooted as close as possible, leaving barely a hair's breadth between the end of her nose and the vampire's. "The parasite comes from a . . ." she began.

"Ceri, there's been a huge mix up with the shipment of meds. Could you come down here and tell the guys that I'm not being a whiny little girl," Jeremy suddenly called from the hallway. Dwight felt his heart drop as Ceridwen turned her head towards her brother's voice. "Seriously, they're not taking anything I say, well, seriously."

"Coming, Jeremy," Ceridwen called. She turned back to Dwight. "I'll be back in a moment, stay here."

"But what causes the . . ." Dwight said as she rose from her seat and darted out of the library. His mind burned with anger at being denied something he had craved since his infection. His face twisted furiously and he let out a guttural growl. Why couldn't that pathetic little whelp handle his own problems? Wasn't he a trained professional with authority he didn't deserve in the first place? Dwight rose from his own seat and strode towards the thick, velvet curtains covering the bay window at the far left side of the library. He breathed deeply, trying to will his rage away as quickly as possible. If Ceridwen returned and found even the slightest trace of him having changed, she would be able to tell that he was without the device and immediately have him re tagged. He growled even louder at this thought. _Relax, you fool_, he chastised himself. He put a hand to the side of his face, once again grasping at his invisible cord of willpower. In a few seconds, he felt proper control returned and he found himself able to stand upright and keep a calm expression on his face once more. His skin suddenly began to burn with the presence of an intruder beyond the window. A growl returned to his throat and rage to his mind. This time, the vampire did not try to fight it away. If there was an intruder, which he was sure there was at the moment, then any action on his part would be justified by self defense. He inched towards the window itself and felt his nerves stand more fully on end as whatever was on the other side began tapping furiously.

Dwight inhaled the air more carefully hoping to catch the scent of whatever was behind the glass before confronting it. His expression contorted in nothing short of hatred at recognizing the scent. In one swift movement, he swept the curtains aside, revealing the form of none other than Richard Dees standing at the window. Dwight growled angrily as he stared out at the aging reporter.

"Hey, Dwight, do you have a minute? I think I might have something you . . . " Richard said. The sentence was cut short by the vampire pulling the curtains closed once again. Of all the horrible things to happen! He was so close to discovering one of the essential pieces of information that he was staying around to attain in the first place, and now Dees was stalking about again. He would have to teach the loathsome oaf a permanent lesson if he didn't leave immediately. To the vampire's dismay, and on another level delight, the tapping continued. He closed his eyes tightly for a moment and tried to ignore the grating noise from the window. "Dwight!" the muffled intruder's voice called once again. "I think that cat-girl, friend-thing of yours might be killing people!"

Dwight felt the irises of each eye burn their respective red that preceded a full meal. He whirled around and swept the curtains aside once again. Richard took a step backwards at realizing the emotion ablaze on the immortal's face. Dwight reached down and wrenched the handle free of the door, swinging both glass doors outward as he swept towards the man. Richard felt all of the blood drain from his extremities as Dwight caught him by the throat and held him aloft.

"You shut your filthy mouth! There are few idiocies in life I will tolerate, Dees, and false accusations are among the chiefest of those which I will not!" the vampire hissed coldly. Richard looked down at the vampire in slight amazement.

"You have an awesome way of saying things, you know that?" he choked.

"Leave before I do what I should have done months ago," Dwight ordered.

"Hold on!" Richard protested. "Don't you want to know what she's torn up?"

Dwight roared and walked to the edge of the balcony that served as a speaking area for the moment. Richard had managed to climb up the walls carefully at remembering where he had seen the library located on the blueprints he had confiscated unscrupulously. The man began choking madly and grasped Dwight's wrist in panic. The vampire snarled. The last thing he needed was some kind of uproar against the only individual that could instruct him in what he was and what he could expect. Ceridwen may not have been any sort of fond acquaintance, though some part of him hoped she would be, but she was a useful being for now.

"Ceridwen has never killed, no, never harmed another creature in all of her life. Her adoptive family swears that she has never even fully turned into a werecat," Dwight corrected furiously. "These episodes are more intense than what she is obviously used to, but nothing else has come of them other than frustration."

"So she is turning," Richard said as quietly to himself as possible. Unfortunately, not only did the vampire holding him have keen hearing, he also had a firm grip on his larynx. The grip tightened. "There have been five people found dead in the last eight days," Richard gagged.

"That means nothing to me," Dwight said firmly. He pulled the man's face as close to his own as possible and spoke calmly. "Nor should it mean anything to you. Ceridwen and I are in the middle of a discussion, if you please. Go home, Dees."

"Dwight, I'm serious. If she's on the fritz then maybe you could give her some more of your blood and that would . . ."

Before Richard could finish, the entrance to the library opened. Dwight's eyes widened and he felt fear begin to take hold. If Ceridwen saw him clutching Richard like this, then she would definitely know that the device had been removed. Dwight quickly thrust the reporter behind the drawn curtains and glared at him.

"Not a sound, do you understand me?" he commanded in a whisper. Dees nodded and tried to watch as unnoticed as possible, who had entered the room and made the vampire so nervous. As he had suspected, it was Ceridwen. She glanced around the room in confusion for a moment before noticing Dwight standing at the window. "Is everything with Jeremiah, settled?"

"Not exactly. What are you doing at the window?" she asked moving towards him cautiously. Something was amiss, but she couldn't detect exactly what it was. Her nostrils twitched slightly as she neared him. "Is there someone else in the room?" she asked in concern.

"Not that I can see," Dwight replied. It was his practice to never outright lie whenever possible, and the truth at the moment was that he could not _see_ Dees. "About what you said before you left . . ."

"Another time," Ceridwen said with a dismissive wave. "I'm sorry, Dwight but something happened to our supplies coming in. Jeremy and I are going to the nearest emergency drop off. It's only about an hour away, so it won't take long. While I'm gone you can read the next chapter or make a list of questions you have for me about the first three."

"I still have a question; where does the infection come from?" he asked more urgently.

"Ceri, come on! We don't want to run short on _anything_ for his sake and ours!" Jeremy shouted from the hallway. Dwight glanced in the direction of the door and snarled.

Ceridwen sighed heavily and shook her head. "I won't be gone long, Dwight. Just try to keep yourself occupied until I get back," she said firmly. Dwight felt the urge to seize the girl by the collar and demand that she give an explanation to his question, but the urge was somewhat assuaged by the thought of brutalizing Dees after she was gone. "And no going outside; there have been strange things happening in the surrounding areas."

"What sort of things?" Dwight called after her, knowing well that he wouldn't get a response. Ceridwen was focused and would not turn to respond to anything but a dying scream. He growled and turned back to the curtains, grasping the cloth angrily. To his dismay, cloth was all that he grabbed.

"See, I told you there were some weird things killing people," Richard said from a few feet away. Dwight glanced towards him, wondering how the reporter had moved so many paces, so quickly, and so unnoticed by the senses of a vampire. "Maybe it isn't her, though. Either way, I think she'd be pretty interested in trying to combat it. This is her thing, right?"

"I will give you a gracious five seconds to be back out the window and away from this room before I hurl you into the forest," Dwight growled.

"Hey, I'm trying to do you a favour, alright? Word is that cops have been watching this place pretty closely, if you know what I mean," Richard added. "I'd hate to think what would happen to that poor girl if they thought she was killing people. I've heard some stories from that Jeremy kid about things the average law enforcement agency will do to people like her, and even people like you. It may not kill you guys, but it's still brutal." Dwight turned and stared at Richard in a combination of concern and irritation. "I think that what she's doing is just amazing, don't you? I mean she's taking on a case that absolutely no one else would. According to that Jeremy kid, this whole thing about reforming you was her idea. They were going to . . ."

"Five," Dwight said in a low voice.

"Five what?" Richard asked in confusion. Without another word, Dwight flew forward and took Richard's right shoulder in his hand, dragging him effortlessly out onto the balcony. By the time he had time to speak again, Richard found himself dangling over the edge of the balcony. Dwight released his grip. Richard shrieked and found the presence of mind to grab onto the vampire's sleeve and arm with the force of a bull elephant. "God in Heaven! What did I say!? What?!"

"I gave you five seconds to flee and you stand there chattering like a rodent," Dwight grunted as he tried to pull his arm free from the man. "Let go, you oaf! It is not too far to fall and the recovery time should teach you a lesson in privacy!"

"No! Man, can't you get it in your chrome that I'm trying to get you to do something?!" Richard sputtered desperately. "Put me back!"

"I would have thought after the incident in Wilmington that you might have learned when to walk away," Dwight said annoyedly. "Let go!"

"Put me back! I'll leave, I swear!" Richard shrieked. Dwight heard shuffling in the hallway beyond the library and frowned. If any of Ceridwen's companions saw this, then he would be in for something worse than the microchip. He dragged the reporter back into the room just as the door opened.

"What's going on in here?" a large man in a dark blue, but symbol-less, uniform demanded.

"A friend came to visit," Dwight explained as he motioned towards Richard. The reporter steadied himself and clutched his chest. "We startled one another, that is all. He wanted it to be a surprise and will think better of it next time."

"Is that true?" the operative asked looking directly at Richard. The man nodded quickly.

"Yeah, it's true. I just wanted to stop by and see how everyone was doing." Richard turned his gaze toward Dwight with pleading intensity. "I wanted to make sure Ceridwen was alright."

Dwight felt fire burn in his veins at this. The operative nodded and left the room, instructing them to act more civilized. The vampire stared harshly at the smaller man still standing beside him. "You never seemed like the type to be interested in an intelligent woman," he growled.

"I'm not interested, not really; it's just I think I might be able to start chronicling for this bureau she's working for. It would be more satisfying for me than the tabs and it would be just as satiating," Richard corrected.

"Still lusting for blood and sensationalism?" Dwight mused shaking his head. "I suppose the evening would have been dull without you showing up. Tell me about the murders and I will tell you whether or not it is worth her time." Richard moved to take a seat, noting that the words 'her time' had an undertone of 'my time'. Dwight must have been getting something he wanted from her to feel so inclined. "What makes you think that a werecreature had anything to do with them in the first place?"

"The way the bodies looked," Richard said. Dwight found himself disgusted that the reporter did not shudder at recalling any photographic evidence of the gore he might have seen before coming to call. "That and the moon was full."

"Is that all?" Dwight said with a sigh of irritation. Richard smiled brightly.

"No, there's a lot more," he replied.

"What then?" the vampire asked with near a yawn.

Richard glanced towards the window. "How long will she be gone, exactly?"


	11. Habeas Corpse

Chapter 11: Habeas Corpse

"This is against my better judgment," Dwight muttered as he followed Richard out of the house and onto the balcony.

"Let yourself go, this is part of the field she works in, I'm sure," Richard replied as he looked over the railing. He breathed deeply and swung one leg over the iron rail. "Come on; it wasn't too difficult to get up here and it's not like you'll have to worry if you fall."

"Neither of us will fall," Dwight said. A wicked grin crossed his face before he reached out and took hold of Richard by the collar. Richard stared back in confusion, but only for a brief second. In what seemed like an instant, Dwight had crouched, leapt, and landed gracefully on the ground still holding onto the stunned reporter. "There, an easier way always exists."

"I thought you couldn't fly," Richard muttered as Dwight began to walk towards the forest.

"I thought you knew what flying was; I leapt from a balcony, Dees, there was no flight involved," Dwight corrected as he looked upward and sniffed the air. "Superior skill and physical control were all that was necessary."

"Good for you, but we need to move quickly so you can be back before she is," Richard said hurrying after the vampire as they moved towards the trees.

"That is not the sum of all our obstacles. Tonight is a new moon," Dwight said as he continued scanning the landscape while walking. "My studies have told me that werecreatures transform under both the new and full moons as they are times of highest transition for the tides and the body."

"Is that what Ceridwen said word for word or are you paraphrasing?" Richard asked with a laugh. Dwight frowned. He would be able to sound superior in intelligence with all of this knowledge someday, but for now Dees knew his source. "My plane is this way."

"What? We do not have time for an excursion, Ceridwen and Jeremiah will only be gone an hour," Dwight said firmly as Richard turned towards another section of the grounds.

"If I recall correctly, mister I hear and know all, Ceridwen said that it was about an hour away. If you think logically that they will not only have an hour out to get there, but also an hour's trip back, then that gives us two hours at least." Richard walked cautiously towards a grouping of bushes and then slipped motioned for Dwight to follow.

The vampire growled slightly in apparent agitation, but followed just the same. There was no use arguing or reasoning with Dees and the fact that he was going stir crazy in the mansion was beginning to escalate into a full blown episode of claustrophobic rage; a rage that would surely end with someone either maimed or dead if he didn't get out for a short while. Richard led the way through a corner of the woods to an adjoining field. Dwight had remembered several acres of farmland being nearby in his youth. Farming was not a mainstay of Maine's economy in his day and he hadn't seen it rise in recent years, but the fields were kept near the mansion never the less. Either extended family or another aristocrat had kept the land and house intact for years and kept the fields in place for peace and quiet. Richard's white Skyhawk lay a few feet away from the edge of the forest in the field. There was no crop at the moment and the grass had been well trimmed. Dwight admired the ground for a few moments and wondered what it would take to get Lenore from the hangar to one of these fields without Ceridwen knowing.

"How far away are we headed exactly?" Dwight asked as the two stood beside the plane. Richard opened the door and allowed Dwight to climb into the back before he entered. "It is not across a state line, is it?"

"Of course not," Richard said as he closed the door behind him. Dwight made himself as comfortable as possible, kneeling on the floor of the plane while Richard fastened his safety belt. "Up the coastline a little there's a small forested area that acts as a hiking attraction specifically for people trying to reconnect with their inner strength. There's a whole package tour thing, I looked it up. Anyway, that's where the first few were found."

"And where were the rest?" Dwight asked.

"Not far from you, actually," Richard replied as he started the engine. Dwight felt a small amount of anxiety move through him at thinking he would be allowing another man to pilot him to a location he didn't know. He breathed deeply and began to analyze different scenarios silently to distract himself from the loss of control. "In fact, they seemed to get closer to you guys. I'm kind of surprised that Jeremy and Ceridwen didn't say anything about it to you or about it at all."

"They have been a little distracted by her incidents, the coming of a new operative for blood disorders, and any progress I make," Dwight muttered glancing out of the windshield.

"And how much progress have you made?" Richard laughed as he pushed forward on the throttle.

Dwight growled softly. "I have yet to kill you."

"Yeah, well, when you leave off the _yet_ part you'll really have shown improvement," Richard corrected as the small craft lifted effortlessly into the air. Dwight looked out of the nearest window as best he could, feeling at more peace than he had in months at being in the sky again. "In fact, the place we're going isn't too far from where you offed that Claire Bowie guy years ago. Do you remember that?"

Dwight's eyes shifted pensively at remembering the killing spree that had attracted Dees to him in the first place. He hadn't been sure why he had decided to return to the east coast after being in the northwest for so long. He had fed fairly well on tourists in the north with the authorities blaming animals. Perhaps it was the natural draw of home. He sighed and shook his head, straining to continue to look out the window without being too close to the pilot.

"Why are we not going to the most recent site? Why the first?" Dwight asked.

"It stands to reason that if the thing killing is a werecat _like_ Ceridwen, then it will return to any place it found food to avoid being accurately tracked. That's how tigers work, you know," Richard explained. "I thought she would have mentioned something like that to you by now."

"I must have not been paying attention during that particular lesson in zoology," Dwight retorted. The two stayed silent for several moments as Dwight marveled at the passing landscape. He breathed deeply and felt all anxiety within him drifting away as rapidly as the stratus clouds passing the plane. How he had missed his nightly routine. True, there had been times where he had stayed in area convinced that he might be able to control himself long enough to ravage a library for answers. It had dawned on him in the past that he could have consulted a library in a large city that stayed open for hours after sunset, but Dwight had always hated large cities. Even as a boy, the visits he and his father had made to New York, Charleston, Raleigh, and Atlanta had made him feel ill. There was too much activity in a city with not enough real progress, like a hive full of mad bees with poor direction. He felt a sudden burst of energy as the plane began to dip lower.

"Beginning initial descent," Richard announced. "Hold onto your important bits."

Dwight ignored the man's comment as he watched the ground draw closer and closer. The landing portion of flight had always fascinated him. He had tried to make an art form out of a perfect touch to the earth with his own plane even while having a joy ride. There were few creatures in nature that landed gracefully, and Dwight wanted desperately to be one of those few. It still angered him that he had crashed for the first time months ago. He watched Richard unfasten his safety belt and crawl out of the craft over the wing. This was another of the aged pilot's peeves. The door to a craft should be below or after the wing, not above it. In his opinion, to have an entrance over the wing was nothing short of disrespect for Bernoulli and the principle of flight itself. He climbed out behind the reporter and sniffed the air. There was something odd about this area, something threatening but not necessarily nearby. Richard eyed the vampire carefully as he shut the door.

"This way," Dwight said emotionlessly as he began to follow the scent. Richard said nothing and hurried after him. Dwight's nostrils flared as a hint of blood began to excite his mind. The absence of the microchip allowed his fangs to protrude ever so slightly. He growled and breathed more deeply. The plane had landed in a field that had been harvested not too long ago. Winter was coming quickly to this side of Maine and November was settling in violently. The smells that the vampire had been able to detect for the past few days told him that there was a harsh cold snap headed there way soon. The farmer must have wanted all losses minimized by harvesting at as early a time as possible. Behind the plane, as had been the case back in Winter Harbour, were thick woods. Dwight could tell that the ocean was not too far, either. Ocean water was easier to smell than anything on the planet for him except for blood. It was something he could mercifully detect at a range of 20 miles. The shoreline was a little closer than that at the moment. Cool night air from the ocean was filtering wonderfully through the trees as the two ventured deeper into the unknown. Richard stumbled and cursed every few moments. Dwight walked calmly and cautiously, sensing that there was nothing in the immediate area that could harm either of them. The pale light of the moon, the perfect temperature, and the fresh breeze made this enjoyable for the vampire. He found himself smiling even with the hint of foul play in the air. Richard stayed several paces behind, asking frequently if the vampire had been able to smell anything dangerous. Dwight hadn't replied for several minutes, trying his best to inhale this little slice of pleasure that had been denied him for some time.

"Come on, man! I'm getting the willies out here, is there or is there not anything ahead that could kill me?" Richard demanded. Dwight felt a twinge of anger surge in him at this interruption, but the anger quickly faded into curious fear as a new, or rather, more potent smell met his nostrils. He stopped dead and tried to find the exact direction for the scent. He turned and grunted, beginning to move more swiftly towards it. Richard frowned and drew in a deep breath. "Oh, give me a break. I can't keep with you if you're going to bolt like that!"

"Hurry up, or you lose the one thing that assures you won't be killed by this animal," Dwight called from several feet ahead. He sprinted as slowly as possible for the mortal's sake, but found himself uncontrollably drawn in the direction with an enormous amount of energy now coursing through him. Richard did his best to keep up, still stumbling and cursing in the darkness. Dwight followed the scent almost blindly as it began to grow stronger, fouler, and mingled with blood. His stomach began to turn. This was not blood that would serve as an acceptable source of food; this was from torn flesh. "It's killed again," Dwight called.

"You can smell that?" Richard replied between gasps for breath. He saw the vampire stop and stare down at something in amazement. Seeing that he wouldn't have far to go to catch up now, Richard allowed himself to go a little slower and catch his breath somewhat before joining Dwight. As he arrived, he caught sight of what looked like a human body. The moonlight was not enough for him to see clearly, but Dwight had the gift of nocturnal vision. The moonlight was more than enough to show the vampire the features of the mangled remains of a human who had deep gashes over their torso, neck, face, and limbs. He turned and grasped the trunk of nearby tree to steady himself. He had not fed that evening, but now he was feeling something stronger than hunger; nausea. This creature was definitely not a normal local animal, angered by the invasion of its territory. Dwight felt a stronger waft of the scent roll over him. He knelt and retched as his eyes grew wide with recognition. Yes, this was a werecreature, and it was one that he recognized all too well. Richard stumbled over to his semi-friend and stood beside him, fighting off a peristaltic reaction of his own. "What did this?" he choked, realizing once again the difference in seeing gore through a camera lens and seeing it without such filtration.

"Ceridwen," Dwight whispered.


	12. Until Proven Innocent

Chapter 12: Until Proven Innocent

Ceridwen and Jeremy rode silently in the back of the vehicle. Jeremy stared at his sister uncomfortably.

"So, has he made any comments during your lectures?" he asked. Ceridwen turned and stared angrily at him.

"You interrupted the first real lesson he's attended," she said. Jeremy frowned.

"I think he's calmed down in the past couple of months," he said with a mark of approval. Ceridwen's gaze softened into amazement at the remark. Jeremy shook himself. "Not that I trust him or think he's doing well, or anything."

"You or anyone else," Ceridwen muttered as she turned to look out of her window once again. "But the truth is that he is doing better than even I anticipated, at least, I think he is. He seems a little agitated lately, like he feels threatened."

"He better," Jeremy said softly as the car pulled into the driveway of an old building. Ceridwen knew that this had once been a free clinic and was now a sort of medical bivouac for all of the operatives in the area. Corners of the United States saw more action in the bureau than anywhere else. Maine, Florida, Washington, and New Mexico had many of these stations for supplies and information. The two exited the vehicle and pulled out their identification badges before approaching the entrance. "They should be waiting for us. They said that they needed to speak with you about something before giving us the next shipment of blood."

Ceridwen frowned and sighed heavily as the two waited for the door to open. After a few awkward seconds of silence, the door creaked open showing three operatives in their dark uniforms. The two nodded to their colleagues, who motioned for them to enter immediately. Ceridwen turned and watched the door close behind them. She felt a twinge of anxiety flicker in the back of her mind causing a few hairs on her arms to stand on end.

"Miss Nistuart," a voice from a good distance away called. Ceridwen turned to face the new sound, accompanied by Jeremy. A stout man with gradually thinning black hair and tiny rimmed glasses approached them, panting heavily. Jeremy noted that this kind of exertion was probably not something the little man was used to, meaning he was most assuredly from the executive centre. He coughed once to hide the last gasp for catching his breath. "It is a pleasure to meet one of the most courageous, and certainly the youngest, reformist in our history. Kudos to you for attempting to shatter that glass ceiling, my dear."

"Actually, it would be a glass wall, sir, but I thank you. I take it that you were the one that needed to talk to me?" she asked uneasily. Something about this whole setup made Ceridwen feel like a victim of some kind. The man nodded quickly.

"A few strange things have happened far north of your station in Winter Harbour and are getting closer to you every now and again. They are killings and they were definitely done by a preternatural being," the man explained.

Ceridwen's eyes narrowed and began to glow. "You aren't suggesting that Dwight would have had anything to do with this, are you?" she said firmly.

"No, no, no, Miss Nistuart. In fact, the progress we are hearing about from you is quite fascinating," the man said with a reassuring pat on the girl's shoulder. The werecat forced back a concerned hiss at the unwanted gesture in an already uncomfortable situation. "No, it was a lycan not a vampire that is behind these murders." Jeremy's eyes widened and he felt himself ready to shout all manner of defenses at everyone in the room on behalf of his sister. The man sighed and moved closer to her. "Your viral DNA was at the scene. We're afraid that perhaps Lucy might have . . ."

"Lucy is thousands of miles away thanks to you; I haven't seen my sister in twelve years!" Ceridwen shouted furiously. The stout administrator and the three operatives near the door all froze and stared at the girl in disbelief. Ceridwen drew in a deep breath and shook her head. "I'm sorry, I'm not feeling well. It couldn't be Lucy, it couldn't. She and the man she was placed with have been in Bulgaria for the past few months. She called me just the other day."

The man's eyes lit up with anticipation. "She called you? Where was she? Did she say how long she had been there?"

"She was in Bulgaria. I believe they've been there since late September well after that Khomoko festival in Prague that they attended to keep an eye on it," Ceridwen said. She stared at the man in full concern. "Has something happened since then?"

The small man wiped his brow, sighing uncomfortably as if about to spread news of death that he had been dreading all afternoon. Ceridwen tensed at the energy he was emitting and felt every nerve in her body standing on edge.

"Well, we all know that Professor Abraham is a good man and an even better physician and would never let anything bad happen to Lucille, but there have been a few odd instances in the past few days that have everyone concerned. The truth is that we've been trying to send a team ourselves to Brasov or an area nearby where they should have been headed, but there have been so many setbacks in the past month what with the changes in authority and all . . ." the man began stammering.

"What is going on with Lucy?!" Ceridwen demanded raising her voice with an animalistic growl in the back of her throat. The man took a defensive step backwards looking at Ceridwen in concern. He coughed for a moment as the girl shook her head. "Just tell me what has happened; are they hurt, missing, what?"

"They're missing, Miss Nistuart, both Lucille and the professor. We haven't had any contact with them in a week and no one else in the area has even seen a trace of them," the man said uneasily. "We're concerned that perhaps she was overtaken by the illness and has come looking for help."

"Ceri would have known if her sister was nearby," Jeremy said taking a small step in front of the girl. "Is there anything else we can help you with before we get the supplies and take them back to the still reforming vampire waiting to be fed?"

The man frowned at the youth's sarcasm and demands. He looked to the left for a moment, thinking carefully. "I suppose the only thing that can be done is keeping a close eye out for any other occurrences in your area and trying to determine where Lucille and the professor are at the moment," he said turning to walk back to the rest of the offices in the back. "The officers will get the supplies to your vehicle. I am very sorry to trouble you about this, Miss Nistuart, but we hope that with your help we can find out what your sister has . . ."

"Whatever it is, Lucy is not anywhere near here," Ceridwen growled. She felt her muscles seizing with a need to destroy the being that had just verbally accosted the reputation of her family. She began to soothe herself mentally, trying to remind herself that this was protocol and no accusations had truly been made. She was finding it harder and harder to restrain her feelings. Odd, she thought. It was as if the moon was full and she was having a full swing in her cycle, but the moon was neither full nor new. Something was definitely wrong. She sniffed carefully and felt a surge of pain rip through her abdomen. She groaned and clutched her midsection with a grimace. Jeremy noted this and raced towards her. Ceridwen put up a hand dismissively. "I'm going to wait in the car."

He nodded and watched his sister exit the building with two of the officers carrying heavy boxes. He frowned. Ceridwen was reacting to something, or rather, someone that shared something with her. There was really no other explanation. Jeremy turned and stared at the blank walls of the building pensively. With Ceridwen being somewhat out of commission, he would have to do some serious research himself.

Ceridwen waited patiently as her brother told the operatives now surrounding him where to send the supplies and where to load the boxes that they, themselves, would be carting back to the mansion. The girl's mind began to burn. What did the man mean by killings in the area? Why hadn't she or Jeremy heard anything about such a thing? Furthermore, how could her viral DNA have ended up at the crime scene? She furrowed her brow and felt a dull throb begin to fill her head from one temple to the other. Lucille had called her a few days before, or had it been a week? Ceridwen began to feel warm as the frustration of having lost track of a few days set in. She had never been so flustered before. She shook her head. This was, in part, Dwight's fault for being so erratic. One minute the vampire was curious and willing to cooperate and the next he was belligerent and hateful. Then again, she had told herself that mood swings and personality adjustment would be a far cry harder for her to deal with in taking this case than seeing a second-hand rendition of reformation had given her over the past few years. She had looked forward to this ordeal since before her adolescence. Ever since she and Lucy had been taken from their mother's side, the girl had wanted earnestly to help all creatures as unfortunate as herself. A sharp pain suddenly ripped through her abdomen, making itself evident to Jeremy with a shrill scream. The boy turned instantly towards the vehicle with his adopted sibling. He frowned and raced over to the vehicle. As he skidded to a halt at the door of the car, he saw his sister lean back and lay sideways on the backseat, clutching her trunk as tightly as she could. He fumbled with the door handle for a moment before flinging the metal barrier open and demanding to know what was wrong. She groaned and felt a flood of information fill her nostrils, mind, and nerve endings. Jeremy's heart skipped a beat as he leaned over his sister, assessing her eyes first. They glowed softly. Though she may not have been about to change fully, there was something that was causing the virus to go on the defensive.

"Ceri?" he asked quickly. "What is it? What are you sensing? Talk to me!"

Ceridwen groaned more loudly and began to sob. "It has to be, there isn't anyone else, but I recognize the scent," she murmured sadly. Jeremy stared at the girl in confusion and forced his way into the back, feeling around one of the side compartments for a dose of the antiviral. As he retrieved the syringe and prepared to slip the needle into her skin, Ceridwen turned and grasped either side of her brother's face desperately. "Lucy wouldn't kill anyone, something else must have her."

Jeremy frowned and gently placed a hand on his sister's face as well. "Ceri, Lucy hasn't had her virus controlled like you have," he reasoned.

Ceridwen's nostrils flared ever so slightly. She leaned dangerously close to the boy's face, nearly sitting nose to nose with him. "Lucy is not a murderer."

"I'm not saying she is," Jeremy replied calmly. As the glow faded from the girl's eyes, a smile crossed his face. "I got to thinking about something. If you, the premiere in most of these preternatural studies, the golden child prodigy, do not know much about the disease, then why should I trust what less qualified people say? Especially when it's pretty obvious that guys like that toad in there don't think to liberally. I don't think Lucy did this."

"Then what did?" Ceridwen asked as the car began to move forward. Jeremy smiled and reached for their safety belts. He fastened Ceridwen's first watching her grow faint from the injection. The first few hours after an emergency dose were usually as tiring as being transformed. He fastened his own and smiled even more brightly.

"When we rescued you from that warehouse, there were lycans and vampires from all sorts of places and all sorts of all ages. Dwight's sire had been hard at work for years, gathering all those minions," the boy explained as he reached for his sister's shoulders and pulled her forward to lay her head on his lap. As she complied and breathed deeply, Jeremy felt a swelling of excitement and fulfillment at his own genius. He had been able to solve this right away. "I think he may have your father's sire in his service." Ceridwen's eyes widened in fear and confusion for a moment. She grabbed the hem of Jeremy's jacket and pulled it to her comfortingly. It made sense, but there would be several gaps of the story to fill in if it were true. "I think both of you will have gotten rid of a few skeletons if we can catch the little jerk. That would do you a world of good, right?"

"Lucy, too," Ceridwen whispered. A slight smile crossed her face as fatigue swept over her more fully. "We'd be normal again."


	13. Research and the Average Amygdala

Chapter 13: Research and the Average Amygdala

Dwight had returned to the plane in a hurry through the dark woods. Richard had managed to find his way as well, all the while shouting a number of curses at the vampire. Once he had reached the craft, Dwight placed a hand on the left wing and leaned himself fully onto it. He panted heavily and forced the emotions that had accompanied that sight out of his mind. Nausea began to dissipate as the young immortal convinced himself that this was simply another piece of a puzzle to be solved and not the grisly remnants of a terrified human being. He shuddered one final time before clearing his throat and firmly ordering himself not to dwell on the gory details. Richard joined him at the side of the plane only a few moments later with anger emblazoned on his nicotine-aged features. Dwight turned and looked at him.

"That corpse is at least three days old," the vampire said breathlessly. Richard stared back in confusion.

"How do you know that?" he asked. Dwight glared at the reporter and flared his nostrils in exhibition. "Oh," Richard muttered. "Still, you smelled Ceridwen. You're sure you smelled her and not some other were-thing?"

"I recognize the scent as hers, and yet . . .," the vampire replied as his gaze began to trail off. His eyes suddenly lit up. "These diseases, these parasites or viruses or whatnot, they must have smells as distinctive as the persons they infect. It is true for my kind, I learned that a few month prior, so it must be true for hers as well."

"Do you think Ceridwen might already know about this and just didn't tell you?" Richard asked as he motioned for the vampire to climb on board. Dwight breathed deeply and climbed swiftly onto the wing and then into the plane. He watched as the reporter climbed in and settled himself into the pilot's seat. "I mean, she seems too on top of everything to let something like this slip past her."

Dwight frowned and found a comfortable, yet safe, position in the back of the small craft. He scooted forward a little to watch out of the window once again. "Ceridwen and her brother may be ahead of you and those like you in their knowledge, Dees, but this surely is not something that would be broadcast in an average stream of media for the common man." Dwight began going over a thousand and one scenarios for the possible causes of this heinous deed, but was drawing blanks right and left. He narrowed his eyes trying to imagine why the girl wouldn't have told him about the attacks to begin with.

Richard craned his neck backwards and glanced at the young vampire. "I take it from the recent events and the starting point you gave the last time I tracked you down, that you're from this area; am I right?" the reporter asked casually.

Dwight sighed heavily and turned to look out the window once more. "The mansion was the home I was raised in. I suppose that was all part of the girl's sentimental plan," he replied with a groan. Richard glanced back again, noting that the vampire's eyes were showing a glistening hint of nostalgia. "Ceridwen clearly is not from this area and has either forgotten, or not yet learned, Maine's geography. She thought we were in Bangor, but you and I know quite clearly that this is now Winter Harbour."

"Now Winter Harbour; what did it used to be?" Richard asked in confusion. Dwight grinned slightly.

"It was a somewhat small community called Raven's Field; my father had purchased a good portion of the land and offered it to farmers for a most reasonable price. His intention was to have a self-sufficient city that would last for centuries in peace and quiet where his descendants would always call home."

Richard laughed loudly. Dwight turned angrily towards the pilot as his laughter faded. "What, did he want some kind of 1900's hippie commune?" he sneered. Dwight growled and turned back to the window.

"For your information, Dees, my father was of the opinion that the forefathers of this country wanted nothing less for each and every citizen than such an existence," Dwight shot back.

Richard shook his head. "That sounds on awful lot like feudalism to me."

"That would probably be due, in part or whole, to your severe lack of formal education. " The vampire folded his arms firmly and turned to the window for the final time. Richard smiled to himself, wondering if the vampire was beginning to feel the same frustration any other human would have felt in trying to figure out his actions in trying to solve this new situation. It occurred to both of them that Ceridwen and her brother would likely have it solved before either had realized the majority of the facts involved. Dwight watched the scenery pass below them in a dark blur. It was easier for the vampire to see in the dark, but the height of the plane and its speed made night vision difficult even for him. His nostrils began to flare as he began to imagine Ceridwen telling him all about the killings, commenting on how that she and her cooperatives had been given the details weeks ago. Anger began to surge through his limbs at feeling so isolated from the outside. It had been nearly half a year since he had been free to fly from place to place whenever he pleased and feeding when he wished on whom he wished. The field and mansion came into view after a few moments more.

"Going in for a landing now," Richard announced. Dwight ignored him and continued going over what he could do to gather information on his own. Richard landed the plane easily in the adjoining field, glancing behind him every few seconds to make sure that the exposure to fresh blood had not caused the vampire to feel hungry. As the plane slowed and stopped a good distance from the forest behind the mansion, Richard reached quickly for the safety belt clasp and undid it. He turned to Dwight as he moved towards the door. "Well, maybe you'll be able to get some insight into this whole deal since you were able to identify the scent and everything."

"I was able to smell the disease, her form of the disease, but nothing more," Dwight corrected. He breathed deeply and turned to Richard staring at him soberly. "It is not possible that Ceridwen's brother would be keeping another infected creature nearby as a scapegoat in order to get out of these situations, do you? The fact that they also get to do any amount of research would be an added bonus, but that could be a reason, could it not?"

Richard stared back at the immortal in disbelief. "You think that you're being kept as something to blame?" he asked in confusion. Dwight closed his eyes and shook his head. "That's a lot of trouble for anyone even if they're used to dealing with people like you."

"It is ridiculous," Dwight said dismissively as he stood to leave. Richard frowned and backed out of the plane and climbed over the wing before Dwight did the same. "I suppose Ceridwen and Jeremiah are either unaware of this situation or think that it is unrelated to her for some reason that I cannot see."

"Well, this is something I need to keep up with just in case," Richard said thoughtlessly. Dwight turned and glared at the reporter.

"Why?" he demanded. "I thought you had gainful employ in the greeting card industry after excusing yourself from tabloid writing."

"About that," Richard said with an uncomfortable smile. "After that Jeremy kid talked to me about you and they came after, I did some research on their organization, or bureau, or whatever and learned that they have their own record keepers and field reporters. I've always been good at working with the deranged. I think this is something I would be able to get in if I was able to get something to take to them to prove myself."

Dwight sighed and frowned. "And you do not foresee things going as badly as they did when you came after me relentlessly?" Dwight asked. Richard began to look a little confused. He hadn't actually thought of that. "You do know that there are obviously worse things than myself in this organization, yes?"

"Maybe, but you're forgetting that there are also operatives more capable than that Ceridwen girl you're with." Richard moved back towards the wing of his plane and prepared to climb back on board. "You know you and I are kind of linked, right? I think that's what makes you so pissed off."

"Where did you get such nonsense? Links of any kind are spiritual in nature and you have little, if any, spirituality," Dwight scoffed.

"Yeah, knock it. But I learned at one of those bogus relaxation therapy sessions that all beings of similar lifestyle are linked in some way. Let's face it; you were right. You and I have a similar appetite for blood, a need for total freedom, and a complete lack of human warmth. No need for it, either. In a weird way, I guess you could say that the only differences between the two of us at the moment are that you're choosing to stay put and I'm in need of funds for sustenance."

Dwight growled angrily at the man's reference to 'choosing to stay put'. While this was true, it was a choice based on gathering information, not a sense of comfort and satisfaction with the current situation. He shook his head and waved once to the pilot as he opened the door.

"Alert Ceridwen or one of the others to what transpired tonight, Dees, and I will finish what I began with you," Dwight warned. Richard nodded to him. "Again, I emphasize that I am not actively killing at the moment in the name of research. As soon as this is done, I fully plan to go back to the way things were."

Richard shook his head and closed the door. He knew that there was a certain danger to being in continuous contact with a vampire, especially one that had already been close to killing him, but Richard was also well aware of the kind of money and freedom he would acquire with holding out and seeing where this risk took him. The plane taxied away from the landing site slowly. Dwight watched with a slight ache for the ability to simply fly away. He felt a wave of anger wash over him for a moment, fighting it off furiously. He wanted desperately to keep the charade of still having the microchip installed to last until he had the information he needed. Ceridwen had come very close to revealing something monumental before her brother had called her away. He wondered if the absence of Jeremiah would be a boon to his research. Then again, perhaps his presence was keeping Ceridwen more stable than he realized. She was, after all, quite an animal herself.

Dwight strode calmly back to the mansion. He was sure that it had been less than two hours and that he had plenty of time before Ceridwen's return. He stood beneath the window for a beat, staring up at it pensively. He could very well simply walk towards his plane, fly into the nightscape and never have to deal with the whole thought of reformation or Richard again. He shook his head. There was still a few things he needed to desperately know. What if he could truly live without the blackouts, without the fits of rage? He knew that he could feed regularly and use his anger to his advantage, but even with the strength that he had learned to exert over the disease, he was still at its mercy most of the time. His nostrils flared as the scent of Ceridwen met him. He growled and cursed himself. He knew better than to have left the mansion while she was either awake or aware of where she had left him. He would simply ask the operative that had come into the room when Richard had screamed to act as a witness to the fact that the reporter had come for a visit. He could tell her that he had stepped out to see the fool to his plane. That would be something Ceridwen would both believe and perhaps admire. He knelt and gathered strength, allowing a small amount of the anger through him enough to exaggerate the power filling his limbs. He grunted loudly as he jumped into the air and caught hold of a fixture on the wall of the mansion. There were oddities like floral gargoyles lining the corners of each sectional, making the room above easily accessible to anyone with Dwight's talents. He grunted again as the jagged edge of a carved oak leaf cut his hand. He hung onto the wall with his good hand and clutched the other tightly to his chest. He felt his skin and eyes begin to change as his fangs began to extend.

"Not now," he hissed loudly to himself. He couldn't afford to have a fit at this time or place. It had never been so much that he was unsure of whether or not he could get away safely; it was the thought that anyone seeking vengeance or justice would trail him more fervently than Richard had done. He drew in a sharp breath and watched the gash between his thumb and forefinger seal shut. The glow behind his eyes faded as the new scab began to peel away as he willed more blood to the area. A sense of relief and triumph filled him as the hand returned to its proper form. He immediately set back to the task of getting back up to the balcony. As he grasped the ledge served as the floor of the balcony, he felt a slight tremor at the thought of answering to the girl. It was not only emasculating, it was downright ridiculous. She was far too young to really have the knowledge necessary to correct and guide him. The absolutely only reason that he was continuing to do this was in the name of answers. He was beginning to wonder whether it was worth the headache, but that could be more thought through after he had sent Ceridwen away with an excuse.

He pulled himself up onto the balcony and walked swiftly towards the door with a final order to himself to remain calm. He reached out and grasped the handles carefully on the glass doors, opening them as silently as possible. As he slipped into the room, he sniffed the area more carefully. It was odd; as soon as he had entered the room, Ceridwen's scent had become a little more faint. Perhaps she and Jeremiah were outside in the driveway and not inside at all. He furrowed his brow and breathed in the scent as much as he could, trying to decipher where it was exactly. He turned his head sharply as someone began knocking on the door. He narrowed his eyes in confusion as he walked back towards the balcony. Had Richard followed him again? He couldn't smell the man anymore, but then, he hadn't really smelled him the first time. Perhaps being so isolated was marring his natural gifts. He reached for the handles once again, forgetting for the moment his obligation to go and make sure that he had not been seen earlier. He pulled the curtains away from the doors to take a quick look at who was demanding entrance. His heart sank as the figure standing on the other side of the glass stared back at him. He took a step backwards as they took hold of the handles and entered silently. He felt a boyish sense of fear; fear of a stern reprimand.

As the figure shut the door behind them, Dwight felt the urge to turn and head quickly for his room. Ceridwen finished closing the door and turned to stare angrily at the vampire. Dwight said nothing as the two stood perfectly still.

"So," she said calmly. Dwight took a deep breath, still preparing the excuse. "Where have you been?"


	14. A Better Realization

**Chapter 14: A Better Realization**

Dwight stared back at the girl in agitation. He still felt a certain resentment for her age and gender. It had gone without saying for Ceridwen and Jeremy that Dwight did not at all have the enlightened views that were expected of men in modern times. Ceridwen stepped closer to him and narrowed her eyes.

"Did you not hear what I said before I had to leave?" she asked calmly. "Do you have any idea what could happen to you outside?"

"You sound like my mother," Dwight said with an amused smirk. Ceridwen frowned. "Although, my mother's fear stemmed from not knowing how polio descended on me and whether or not it would strike again. What could possibly harm me outside as a vampire?"

"Any operative who knows that you aren't cleared to be unsupervised which is anyone working for the bureau and everyone in the mansion," Ceridwen replied. Dwight groaned and turned away. The idea that he was having to remain confined because of ignorance, yet again, was almost too much to bear. Ceridwen stepped quickly in front of him, keeping him from ignoring the past few minutes whatsoever.

'Dwight, listen to me;" she said in forced diplomacy. "You haven't come even close to the level of understanding this condition that other reformees have when given the privilege of roaming free around their containment area. The fact that I gave you permission to move freely about the mansion was an enormous leap of faith and could still go badly for the both of us. You can't keep wandering off like this."

"Wandering off?!" Dwight suddenly shouted. Ceridwen frowned and averted her eyes. She knew that she had said the wrong thing. Chastising Dwight might have felt like the right thing to do, but it had proved in the past to not help in the least. It was also true that Dwight had only really wandered off a total of three times including this one. He growled softly and clutched the side of his head to regain some form of control. "Miss Nistuart, I have only left this mansion three times since I was brought here against my will. All three times were out of necessity and none of them saw me doing anything wrong." Ceridwen raised one brow reproachfully at the young immortal. Dwight glanced to the side for a moment. "Well, perhaps not. The first time was not out of absolute necessity and it did end with you and I horribly injured. In all fairness, though, the fact that I did come to your aide with your brother is sound evidence that I am not intent on causing you harm." Dwight's eyes darted back and forth for a moment, feeling an awkward tension at thinking he had not been fully truthful. "That is, I do not dwell on causing you harm with every waking moment."

"Why _are_ you staying here?" Ceridwen demanded. She was allowing her voice to rise significantly and the fact that she was hiding some sort of physical trauma was becoming more evident with every breath. Dwight tilted his head and tried to figure out whether or not the lycanthropy itself was trying to surface. The scent of her viral DNA, or what he assumed was her viral DNA, was strong. Then again, it had been strong for several days now. She sighed and turned away, raising her arms in frustration. "What am I supposed to do? This isn't going the way I thought it would, at all! I thought I could have you educated through the first manual and into phase two by now!" she ranted. Anger and indignation began to seethe through Dwight at her words. "Lately it seems that every time I turn away from you, you're darting outside and then coming back expecting me to . . ."

Dwight moved towards the girl as she suddenly became very still and silent. He breathed heavily, allowing only a little of his traits to surface. He couldn't refuse all of the disease for much longer and at least he could keep a few of the more intricate traits hidden while she was this angry.

"Every day I wake, and do you know what I do? Since I have been brought here, I read and wait then read and wait. You have only just begun to try and teach me anything that I did not already know! However difficult this may be for you, _madam_, it is thrice such for me!" he hissed loudly. "If you had expected more of me, then perhaps you should begin doing more than observing from a distance of at least three rooms! For heaven's sake, I do not even have the chance to see you every day!" Dwight breathed angrily as he loomed over her. The thought that the girl was still remaining silent and still struck him. He stepped away and watched her more carefully. "Miss Nistuart?" he asked cautiously. Ceridwen said nothing and continued to stay motionless near the center of the room.

He sniffed deeply without making it too obvious that he was examining her scent for something abnormal. There was nothing to indicate that she was getting ready to attack. The memory of being attacked by the werecat form of the girl was frightening even for a vampire accustomed to brutally slaughtering people regularly. Ceridwen turned towards him and breathed deeply. Dwight took a step backwards as the corners of her mouth lifted into a smile. The vampire's brow furrowed in utter confusion. Was Ceridwen having some sort of emotional fit?

"Every time, you come back," she repeated softly. Dwight moved back towards her as she laughed in amusement. "Every time, you come back." She looked towards him and smiled brightly. The vampire felt the impulse to race back out the glass doors rip through him at thinking he might be on the receiving end of a female's breakdown. "Dwight, do you know what this means?"

"I have not upset you too terribly this evening?" he replied in confusion.

"Well, that's not important right now," Ceridwen said waving her hand dismissively. She giggled excitedly and placed her hands excitedly on his shoulders. The vampire tensed as he felt her trembling. "You _have_ reached phase two! You're not a frightened animal looking for an escape!"

Dwight forced her hands away angrily. "Is that how you have been referring to me?!" he demanded.

"This is incredible! The information you're getting is next to nothing! You're making these behavioural changes all on your own!" she continued. She began walking towards the door, obviously still caught up in her own happy revelation. Dwight felt an even greater frustration at being so ignored for insubordination. In fact, it was almost infuriating that he wasn't being sternly reprimanded at the moment. Didn't Ceridwen feel angry, and if not, why not? He hadn't changed, she was making foolish assumptions based on a disturbed fantasy that she had been feeding since her childhood. He groaned and thought for a moment. This would have to wait until later. The fact that he had found Ceridwen's scent at the sight of the killing was a more important issue to address. But who would be able to give him the assistance that he needed? He did not want Richard around anymore than absolutely necessary. He sighed and felt his heart sink further at realizing the best person to ask was one of his least favourite people of all; Jeremiah.

He grumbled softly to himself as he tried to locate the boy. He had not wandered extensively through the mansion despite having been given permission to do so within the first week of his reformation. He had recognized the mansion when making a flight to the basement one night and had not felt any inclination to try and reacquaint himself with it at all. He knew how to get from one end to the other without needing to go up and down the stairs all the time, something that was an issue for the majority of his childhood. Dwight was still unsure of what had sent his polio into remission so quickly. His parents attributed it to their funding radical and immediate care for him, but Dwight was never convinced that the medicines he had been given were what had done the trick. The thought of Ceridwen being far enough away for him to have a modicum of freedom made it easier for the vampire to focus.

Jeremy was seated in what had once been the west drawing room. It had been converted into a den some years ago with an entertainment centre for the current owners. Dwight could clearly smell the boy's presence from the library. Jeremiah's scent had been something that Dwight had decidedly attuned himself to in order to be prepared for emergencies. Dwight decided that if something terrible were to happen, it would either be Jeremiah's fault and he would need to get away from the boy quickly, or that life more than life would be in question and Jeremiah would be trying to pin it on the vampire in the which case he would still need to get away from him. A nagging desire to let things lie burned in the back of his mind as he reached for the door to the room. Talking with the young man held all the excitement that scraping various insects away from the windshield of Lenore did. Still, Jeremy would be the best candidate to help monitor Ceridwen and gather information in a way that wouldn't upset the other vultures watching him. Dwight was still unsure of the coven that had been blown apart when he had rescued Ceridwen. The son of his sire, Craig, was still on the loose somewhere.

Dwight opened the door slowly and peered in. Jeremy sat on a large plush sofa facing an enormous television screen. Dwight had been rather fascinated with television when he had returned to the east coast three years prior. Now he felt that it was more of a nuisance at the airports and in homes than entertaining. Flickering across the screen were unusual images. Dwight could tell by what was being said that the setting was a medical facility and that there was some sort of tragedy involving a young woman with an odd illness. He shook his head and walked towards the sofa. The content of the majority of the programming on television had become increasingly dull in the vampire's mind. He stared down at the youth for a few seconds as he neared the screen and sofa. Jeremy looked towards him.

"I thought I smelled something stupid," Jeremy muttered as he turned back towards the screen. Dwight growled and reached for the boy's collar. Jeremy darted out of the vampire's reach and smiled. "Too quick for you that time!" he laughed as he backed away. Dwight remained silent as the boy backed into an end table, toppled backwards over it, and fell to the floor with a loud thud. After Dwight saw that the young man was not too injured to climb back to his feet, he laughed quietly. "What do you want?" he grumbled with embarrassment.

"I had a visit with an old friend while you and Ceridwen were out," Dwight replied.

"Don't make me keep saying _and;_ what happened and what do you want?" Jeremy said between sharp breaths that hid shouts of pain. He flopped back onto the sofa, clutching his bad shoulder.

"Very well, Richard informed me that there had been some unusual killings reported in the area north of us with their sightings coming sequentially closer to the mansion," Dwight continued.

"It figures that bald wing-weasel would have already known about this," Jeremy muttered.

Dwight frowned. "I suppose that you and Ceridwen did not inform me because you had too much else to do," he said coldly. "That aside, we visited one of the sites and I discovered something disturbing. I recognized the scent of the killer."

"Well, do you think you could identify him for the bureau?" Jeremy asked casually.

Dwight growled and pushed the urge to scratch the boy harshly across the face out of his mind. "I cannot," he replied.

"I figured you wouldn't be able to," Jeremy said with a smirk. "I'm beginning to think that you don't have all the little powers you think you do."

"Whether or not the identification was sound or not is hardly the reason that I would refuse to stand before anyone in your organization," Dwight corrected. "I would refuse to give over the identity in the name of a personal debt of life to this person."

"What are you talking about?" Jeremy said with clear irritation. Dwight snarled and reached for the un-attentive youth, catching him by the sleeve and yanking him off the sofa to face him.

"It was your sister's scent, you fool!" he shouted. Jeremy stared back at the man in horror. "Finally, I get your attention."

"You think that it was her?" Jeremy said in a near whisper.

"No," Dwight replied looking behind him to make sure that no one was listening to them. "I smelled something similar to her, but it was not her scent entirely."

"Where was the killing? When did it happen? How did it happen? Have you told Ceri?" Jeremy began sputtering. Dwight looked away and sighed heavily.

"Perhaps we should, all three of us, discuss this further," he offered. Jeremy nodded. Ceridwen had acted strangely at the information given to them by the operatives at the supply house. Perhaps there was something causing her to react so terribly these past few days and perhaps the vampire would be the key in putting it to an end.


	15. Purposes

**Chapter 15: Purposes**

Dwight followed Jeremy out of the room and out towards the stairwell. He almost felt glad that he had told the boy about the incident. Jeremy seemed to be taking this more seriously and less violently than the vampire had anticipated. As they reached the base of the stairs, the younger motioned for the immortal to go first. Dwight narrowed his eyes, trying to decipher the precise reason for this unexpected gesture. He growled inwardly at realizing that not only was he too frustrated with Ceridwen to be at his best with his senses, but he was also growing hungry. He shook his head and moved past the boy. His nerves lit up as he felt something suddenly begin to sting at the base of his neck near his shoulder, but it was too late to defend against whatever it was from doing damage. Dwight reached up and tried to take hold of what must have pierced his skin. He withdrew an emergency syringe. He had seen these in airfield first aid kits used to hold things like insulin, epinephrine, and so on. He cursed himself silently and turned back to face Jeremy.

"Goodnight," the boy said coldly.

Dwight breathed deeply and turned back to the stairs. He managed to walk up three steps before his vision field began to shrink. He drew in all the strength he could muster and told himself that he was only a few feet from the landing. Once at the landing, he could make it to his own room in a matter of five steps. Waiting to fall into unconsciousness until he was in his own room would show the little twerp who was in control. His limbs seemed to be filling with sand as he pressed forward. Each step past the third seemed to be one of a thousand that he had already climbed. He groaned a little louder than inwardly as the landing grew closer. Only two steps away now. He leaned forward, thinking that perhaps he might pull himself up more fully if he could only get a good grip on the floor. His body began to remind him of how comfortable the floor could be, supporting his heavy extremities with polished, wooden vigilance. He blinked once, forcing his eyelids harshly into his cheeks. The gesture was, unfortunately, the last bit of energy within. He felt his body collide with the landing as warmth and darkness surrounding him.

_Drat_, he muttered to himself in the darkness. _What is wrong with that boy? What did I do? I am trying to help his imbecilic sister and this is what I get in return? This is exactly why I should have left weeks ago._ The information is still here, you will not have it unless you are patient, something else said. Dwight did not recognize this voice. He frowned and tried to open his eyes. When he had dreamed these past few months he had been able to communicate with Ceridwen in some kind of bizarre academic setting. That had usually been when she was asleep as well. What would he see in a slumber without her being present? He had often dreamt of his victims when his mind had allowed him to see his own dreams. Since becoming a vampire the screams, pleas, and mangled bodies alongside the memory of being attacked had haunted his days and nights.

Dwight felt his chest grow tight at thinking about facing the nightmares again. He had been blissfully spared from them for the past few months and he was not about to start back. He sighed heavily and began to think of a way, any way, to wake himself up immediately. A sharp, icicled chill stabbed at his lungs and shattered with a deep and panicked breath into thousands of painful shards that swam through the small amount of blood in his veins and began trying to tear their way to the surface of his skin. He felt the need to cry out in pain, but wanted to reserve more energy for the task of rousing himself. He had been to under-focused to keep himself awake on the stairs. Why had his senses been so stunted as of late? He had only noticed the change when it truly mattered; Ceridwen would never have been able to sneak up on him in the forest, nor would Dees have been able to sneak up to the window and demand entrance. Dwight tried to shove all other thoughts aside and think only about climbing out of this darkness. A sudden sensation of being grabbed firmly on the shoulder stole his attention. He quickly cursed and forced his eyes open. As the fatigued lids of the vampire opened slowly, the figure of a young woman came into focus. Dwight narrowed his gaze and tried to familiarize himself with the form as he clearly began to feel the presence of the girl's hand on his shoulder.

"Ceridwen?" he asked in confusion; hoping that the girl had somehow made it into his unconsciousness even while being awake. As his vision cleared, his heart sank. Ceridwen was awake and would not be joining him. "Oh," he said softly with a heavy tone of disappointment.

"Well, it's good to see you, too, Mr. Sunshine," the girl replied. Dwight recognized the face and eyes as that of the girl from several days before in a dream. The girl had been at the same school setting as himself and Ceridwen, but had not seemed to be either the same age or from the same region. This girl must have been from a similar bloodline, though. Her features still reminded him of the werecat waiting for him in the mansion. "I guess I'll just let you get back to sleep."

"Wait," Dwight exclaimed quickly. If there was one thing he hated to be, it was being alone against his will. The girl smiled at him and placed both hands near her hips. "What are you doing here? Are you from the waking world like Ceridwen and myself? Is this some sort of astral plane?"

"Yeah, kind of," the girl replied as she looked over her shoulder. She turned back to Dwight and raised one brow in curiosity. "What's it to you?"

"I might be able to do more research here, then," he said softly; the words meant more for himself than for anyone else. "I could know more about her condition than she knows about mine."

The girl let out a loud, and unintentionally scornful, laugh at his words. Dwight looked up at her with the precursor of contempt. She smiled and, in one fluid movement, sat down beside him on the ground. Dwight suddenly noticed that he was sitting in the middle of an abandoned soccer field. The sky was darkened as if night were beginning to descend over the short-cut grass and plastic netted goals. He frowned and looked into the girl's vibrant, verdant eyes as she readied to say something.

"You might be able to do reading about the conditions in here, sweetie, but Ceri's also got experience with this stuff," the girl said.

Dwight looked away. "She barely knows how to handle her illness," he replied. The girl sat back away from him and rolled her eyes in agitation. "She still has little idea what causes her fits and what does not."

"Puh-lease; do you really think that she was being entirely truthful to you when she said that? Come on, as ridiculously reckless as the US government can be when it comes to its staffing, their bureau of 'vampires and werewolves' wouldn't have allowed an ignorant werecat to start treating a rampaging vampire," she replied. Dwight snarled and flashed red in his eyes towards her. The girl smiled and tilted her head. "Are you offended at the ignorant comment, or the rampaging?"

"If you had to ask me if I was offended at all, then you should be apologizing," he growled.

The girl looked shocked and quickly brought a hand to her chest. With the other, she grasped his shoulder and leaned in to speak more clearly. "I deeply apologize for any offense," she said with feigned remorse. Dwight growled more loudly and shoved her away from him, trying to raise himself to standing. He realized yet another strange factor present this time; he was as he appeared to others, not a school boy. He felt a measure of disappointment at this. It had almost been worth dreaming to be young and carefree again. He turned and watched as the girl stood. "Look, something happened where you are, or you wouldn't be here."

"What do you mean, where I am, where are you?" he shot back. She smiled brightly.

"Doesn't matter, the point is something made you sleep before morning," she said as she began to saunter past him. Dwight watched in confusion. This girl was even more confusing than Ceridwen. She appeared to have a rather undistinguishable age and origin. She was dressed more to be attending a film festival than to be sitting with him on a soccer field. Ceridwen had always been dressed in more casual school attire, but this girl was most definitely donning a level of confident that Ceridwen had yet to achieve.

"Who are you?" Dwight finally managed to ask.

The girl grinned brightly, apparently having waited some time for this question. "Call me Elle, that's simple enough for now." She moved closer to him, trying to discern what had brought him here. Dwight glaced cautiously to the side. "Did Jeremy slug you, or slip you something?"

Dwight stared at the girl in further confusion. "How do you know about Jeremiah?" he asked.

The girl turned and smiled brightly. "Have you noticed yourself feeling more tired lately? I'm sensing some kind of question about what's happened to you physically lately," she continued. "He's probably altering it by some means since he's in charge of preparing your blood."

"How do you know this!?" Dwight demanded more loudly, starting towards her as if to attack. The girl took a few steps away, more out of concern than fear. Dwight froze as he began to feel uncharacteristically warm. His heart began to race and he was sure every vessel in his body was suddenly on fire. "What is happening?" he whispered.

The girl moved towards him, her smile fading. "You're being given something to wake you up from something chemical. I'm guessing he gave you pure chloroform or something like it. It's different in our systems than in a regular human's," she explained. Dwight's expression changed as he felt breath leave him. Was the girl a vampire as well? She sighed and looked behind her once more. As he leaned forward, feeling air becoming too heavy to draw in anymore, she leaned over him. "Listen, the real reason I wanted to speak with you was to clarify something that's going on in your part of the world. Ceridwen will find out about it soon, or maybe she already knows and isn't saying anything."

A flicker of recognition moved past the staggering heat within him and he raised his eyes to meet hers. "The killings," he breathed.

The girl's breath stopped for a moment as she looked down. "You know about them?" she said softly. She knelt and placed both hands on his shoulders as he leaned onto the ground, feeling as fatigued and ill as he had when being sedated. "What's doing it?"

"It is not Ceridwen, it cannot be," he replied softly. His mind began to race. "Her scent was there, but not an exact match, there was something else." The girl continued staring at him as he felt the urge to lie down and let this newer unconsciousness take him more deeply. "She has a sister; perhaps her sister is nearby."

"Her sister is in eastern Europe," the girl said defensively. A tone of desperation was mixing with the concern in her voice as she tightened her grip on his shoulders. Dwight wanted to throw her hands away from him, to force her to leave. Surely the air would be easier to breath and the world would be more comfortable if he were alone for the time being. "It's not Lucy, do you hear me? It can't be!" she shouted. Dwight found her excitement odd, but was a little too distracted to try and think about it any further than simply noticing. He felt her face right in front of his. Her breath and heartbeat had begun to race. Why was she suddenly so afraid? No, he realized. It was not fear, it was desperation for knowledge, something he was beginning to know quite well. "What else was there? What else did you smell?"

Dwight smiled slightly. At last, he had power over another that was more than simply baring his fangs in anger. He had always enjoyed games on a more intellectual level, but now he was seeing the wonder of holding information as a more meaningful prize. The girl snarled and him and made her grip into a painful grasp, nearly digging her trimmed nails through his clothing and into his flesh. He chuckled softly and allowed the heat to envelope him as his heart raced so rapidly he was sure it would soon explode. "It was more than Ceridwen," he said with a sigh. As the world grew so bright that his vision was blocked, Dwight was sure he could hear the girl screaming his name and demanding that he stay and explain what he had discovered. The light began to diminish and the heat began to fade slowly. Dwight felt his heart slowing and then two fingers press firmly into the side of his neck.

"His pulse is stabilizing," he heard a masculine voice say emotionlessly in the distance. Noise seemed to be filtering through at least 30 feet of open air before it reached him at the moment, but there was noise. There were the sounds of a few pieces of machinery whirring and the beeping of diagnostic equipment that had given favourable readings. He felt a wave of cool air sweep away more of the heat as his heart beat as powerfully and steadily as ever.

"Good, his O2 and fluids seem to be normal as well," Ceridwen's voice added. Dwight felt a small emission of adrenaline slip from above his left abdomen and swirl into his chest at the sound of her voice. The beat of his heart increased ever so slightly with the tiny drop of energy, but not enough match the incident that had occurred only seconds earlier. "His respiration is normalizing. Dwight? Dwight can you hear me?" she began to ask loudly.

The young vampire could now feel the girl's presence; she stood only a few feet away from him, looking over him. He felt a sense of peace return to him at knowing she was nearby. Whether it was the thought that his main resistance on escaping was close enough to handle once again or it was a measure of comfort at the girl's kind nature was yet to be determined. He tried to open both eyes to get a better look at her, but was finding it increasingly difficult to move as pain began to settle over each free nerve. He felt his lungs expand with relief at finally being awake once more.

Another heat wave began to wash over him as the relief waned. This heat was nothing short of unadulterated anger; anger that would be aimed most directly at Jeremiah. Dwight allowed the rhythm of his heart to be his only focus as he looked around the room he lay in. He was in his own room once more, lying on the bed with Ceridwen near him and two other medical operatives who had been tending to him and taking vital signs. He smirked at recognizing a few of the machines and instruments from seeing television shows and, on a rare instance, the medical supplies for an airport. There had been a defibrillation device nearby in case something went wrong. Dwight narrowed his eyes at the machine, wondering what exactly had happened to him that would warrant the need of things altering his heartbeat.

"You can go on, for now. Thank you for reacting so quickly," Ceridwen said to the other two men. They nodded and swept out of the room instantly. Dwight was sure that his vision and perception of time must have been damaged for the time being since no human could move as quickly as he had just seen. He shook his head and tried to focus more clearly on what was around his body. He knew he was clothed from the waist down, but he could feel a slight breeze over his chest. Ceridwen sighed heavily and walked over to the bed, leaning near his face to speak quietly. "Dwight? Are you able to speak?"

He groaned and tried to sit upright, finding that his muscles were not at all responding. "I am," he replied with disappointment. "What happened to me after Jeremiah drugged me?"

Dwight could see the girl's face twist ever so slightly in anger. "You collapsed. He came and got me almost immediately and said that you weren't breathing. He was wrong, of course, you were breathing but very shallowly. The medical team got you into your room and started a few tests after giving you some blood to combat the seizure."

"The what?" Dwight asked in confusion.

"You had a seizure, a small one, maybe a petit mal, but it was a reaction to being so dehydrated. That's my doing, I'm afraid. I should have kept better track of you, I should have done more for you all along," she said, her voice beginning to break.

Dwight felt a surge of guilt move through him. Ceridwen looked positively heartbroken. He drew in a deep breath, pushing strength into his back and sitting up. Ceridwen, startled, jumped a few inches backwards. He reached out and grasped her hand, reassuring himself that this was the waking world and that he hadn't died like a coward from a silly reaction to a chemical. Dwight had always dreamed of being a warrior, a soldier whose life was taken by force. After the years of illness, it seemed a more just death than anything else. "How long have I been like this?" he asked, feeling more disoriented now that he could see and hear the world around him. The input of the peripheral senses almost clouded things more for him than relying on the internals.

"Just an hour or so, actually," she said. "Don't worry, I've already called a meeting to set up a more productive schedule for us. You need to eat more regularly and the lectures will give you something to look forward to. As for Jeremy, I think he needs to be re-located."

"Perhaps," Dwight said grasping the back of his head as he felt himself falling backwards without movement. He groaned. Besides the formal discipline, Dwight wanted a word with the little weasel to give him a lesson that he wouldn't forget, ever. He had been doing his utmost to try and hurt the vampire since his arrival, and this was too far. Jeremiah had obviously, and deliberately given him an abnormal dose of something. In any other human, it would have killed. He fought the urge to transform and seek vengeance as he looked back up at the girl. "Let me speak to him for a moment, perhaps he and I might come to an understanding of why he has committed yet another attempt on my life, such as it is."

Ceridwen drew the corner of her mouth to one side, thinking earnestly about the suggestion. Jeremy had only told her that he had given Dwight a sedative when he had started shouting at him. Ceridwen had given Jeremiah a cruel look and reminded him that she had exceptional hearing and that no sounds of shouting had come from either end of the mansion. To this, Jeremy confessed to feeling angry at the fact that Dwight had left the mansion and wanted to have him sedated while calling headquarters to report a breach, hoping to anger the medical team and alert them to the vampire having run freely in his reformist's absence. Ceridwen remembered raising her voice, but not the precise level she had used when telling her brother and the team that a visitor had come to call and they went outside for a few moments, nothing more. Markus, one of the operatives, had confirmed this from the other side of the room. The girl had been frustrated enough with her own internal changes, the information regarding the sudden slaughters, the accusations against Lucille, the thought that Lucille was missing, and then finding that Dwight had ventured off. Jeremy had managed to be the proverbial straw that brought the entire mess to its calumnious culmination. She sighed heavily wandering if it was wise to allow a recovering vampire to face a previous attacker while still in bed, both for the sake of the patient and the sake of her brother. Dwight hadn't seemed dangerous in the past few months, but if there was one thing the girl had learned it was that tigers are tigers and no matter their location, their primal nature follows. All preternatural creatures were dangerous; even she was dangerous.

"Are you sure you're up to talking with him?" she asked carefully. "He seems a little frazzled now that he's been caught."

"Meaning that he is significantly less likely to try anything similar," Dwight explained. "He is only human, but I need a word with him; I had something I needed to tell him before this incident," he explained.

Ceridwen stared at him pensively. Was Dwight hiding something as well? The vampire looked away, trying his best to shield his vulnerable eyes from her penetrative gaze. She shouldn't know the details of what he and Dees had found until he had conferred with Jeremiah, threatening him if necessary, about anything that might be hunting her. Dwight didn't believe for a minute that Ceridwen was behind a killing of any kind; his sense of potential harm had been untouched by the recent lack of vibrancy in all of his other special gifts. He could still smell an innocence in the girl that had yet to shed blood whatsoever, not even in cutting into a slice of meat. While this was fascinating and made him curious about how she had lived all these years with a violent condition, he needed to ensure that she would be around to give him the information he desired; and the only way to do that was to either destroy what was after her (which he had theorized was the true reason for the killings since it shared her genetic scent) or cure her from whatever was causing her to berserk.

Ceridwen nodded with resignation. "I'll send him in, he seemed to be concerned about being the first person to talk to you when you woke up. I am going to be trusting and assume that the two of you were, in fact, arguing and are not hiding something from me," she said. Dwight felt another, sharper, stab of guilt in his solar plexus. "That's something I just can't stand."

"Unusual," Dwight muttered as he looked down and noticed that he was naked from the waist up with a few markings that indicated the drawing of blood and the placement of a few pieces of medical equipment used to monitor the heart. He smirked. "I was always led to believe that the fairer sex are masters in the art of scheming. After all, it was not a man who invented the masquerade."

Ceridwen frowned at him, feeling that her notion of her brother and Dwight having some sort of secret was now confirmed. Dwight became more verbose when trying to hide something with cleverness. She shook her head. How could she think such a thing? She hadn't known him long enough or well enough to make that sort of statement. She scolded herself repeatedly as she moved towards the door, trying to make more sense of all of this as well as stating firmly that she had been a poor example of a reformist and that her methods would change starting tomorrow. Dwight watched the girl move slowly from the room. Whatever had happened or been said while he had been unconscious had truly made her rethink her behaviour. Her eyes had become more fixed, more focused on something above herself. Perhaps the entire thought of keeping him here had been brought into question. That did not particularly matter to him, now. With the device still gone, he would be able to get away from the mansion as soon as Ceridwen had gone over the rest of the manual on vampiricism. While Dwight was sure that he could easily have picked up information on his own from the text and then looked for other materials from the organization, he knew the benefit of having an instructor.

He thought for a moment about what exactly could be done to keep Ceridwen from being too suspicious of what he and Jeremiah would discuss. Jeremy would be wary of telling her for emotional reasons, but really for her current health's sake it would be in her best interest not to know that her genetic scent had been found at the scene of a murder. As he pondered different things he could ask her to research that would take up a substantial amount of research as a distraction, Jeremy entered the room. He stared uneasily at the vampire from across the room. Dwight breathed deeply and continued fighting away the urge to transform and slay the little brat. _Later, there are more important things to do_; he said to himself.

"You fell pretty hard, but it didn't change that weird shape to your head," Jeremy said trying to lighten the mood with his own humour. Dwight snarled at him and reached over to the bedside, seizing the large book on vampiricism and hurling it at the boy. Jeremy had been too uneasy to dodge the assault and fell backwards an inch as the hard-bound cover collided with his head. "Ow! What?! You're fine! I didn't hurt you!"

"The team of operatives steadying the abnormal quivering of my myocardium would disagree, but that was not why I disciplined you just now," the vampire replied in a low voice.

"Then what was that for and why do you even want me in here?" Jeremy grumbled. The tongue-lashing he had received from Ceridwen while the team had been at work on Dwight had been harsh enough.

"Do you not think that the operatives will be suspicious of your sister if you begin to act out of sorts, you fool?!" he hissed. Jeremy frowned and looked away in embarrassment. "I told you that I wished to speak with you about what I had found, not that I wanted to take your sister to the authorities and demand that they subdue her. I am assuming that you lashed out at me chemically in order to protect her and not because you are malicious."

"Hey, if it gets around that you're roaming all over the place in the first stages of your reformation then Ceridwen could be banned from a normal life," the boy retorted. "Besides, I wasn't sure that you were being honest."

"And you feel that silence is better evidence than an explanation?" Dwight growled. Jeremy sighed and shook his head. "Now, thanks to you, my head is throbbing, I am experiencing unprecedented nausea, and I feel positively exhausted."

"Not my fault," Jeremy shrugged.

"It is entirely your fault!" Dwight shouted. "That aside, I need for you to do the investigating that Richard and I were unable to do properly."

"I'm not going out into the middle of nowhere where you might have left some kind of nasty trap for me," Jeremy said defensively. Dwight growled more loudly. "Watch it, Dracula. Ceri knows that the device isn't in your head anymore and she made me swear on pain of being removed from this case that I wouldn't tell anyone. Don't think for a minute that I wouldn't accidentally turn it back on."

"There is something sharing your sister's illness that is on the hunt and you are threatening me?" Dwight laughed. "Perhaps it would be better to trust the task to Dees alone."

"Fine; I'll tell him to get his bald, white butt out here in the morning and go back to where you guys were. There's been several murders over the past three weeks, but Ceridwen's been more focused on you to come up with any of her theories. She's one of those people that can watch a crime show and know the ending like five minutes in, you know?" Jeremy stammered. Dwight could tell that Jeremiah was covering for his fear of going out against something that may turn out to be related to his adopted sibling and his guilt of nearly killing her latest assignment. "How did you come to the premature conclusion that this thing is after her, anyway?"

"Why else would a pattern of killings come closer to the mansion and share her scent? I truly hate repeating myself, Jeremiah, and I do believe that I said that to you earlier," Dwight grumbled as he rubbed his head gingerly. Jeremy scoffed and turned towards the door. "Your sister seems different now."

"She realizes that I've been right; she hasn't taken this as seriously as she should have. She started off with the whole rescuing a lost puppy attitude and didn't calculate that you might have different opinions and a belligerent personality." Jeremy answered quickly. He frowned and hesitated a moment. Dwight felt, for the first time in years, a chill settling over his chest. He groaned uncomfortably and began rubbing his shoulders. "You'll be happy to know she's given me a reprimand on my permanent record and I'll be under house arrest once it gets back to headquarters next week. She was really scared you were going to die."

"Apparently with good reason," Dwight said. "I do find it odd that while I need blood to survive, when a normal person like yourself makes a deliberate attack against another that brings them so close to death all you receive is a slap on the hand and you feel wronged, but you feel that people like myself should be destroyed." He smirked with amusement as Jeremy's eyes burned with indignation. "I do believe that you and I are on equal ground at the moment."

"_**I do not kill people**_!" Jeremy shouted furiously. Dwight, surprised by the outburst, lifted one brow. The boy stood, quivering with anger for a moment that Dwight could tell came from guilt that stemmed from more than simply this incident. What lurked in the boy's past that could have made him so defensive? After living with a werecat and a mother who became a vampire, what could he have done that made him feel so protective of his own good reputation? "Look, I, I, I'm sorry I drugged you like that, alright? Just don't tell anyone about wandering off or imply you found anything incriminating while I try to investigate. I don't think even Richard knows what some of the operatives do about all of this. The bureau has done a good job of keeping it quiet and it's pretty recent. Ceridwen hasn't even sensed how many deaths there have been and how far away. I've got to do something to get her lycangrophine under control again."

"Good evening, then," Dwight said dismissively. Jeremy scowled and headed out of the room. The vampire laid his head back against the pillow and thought for a moment. He had been able to establish a connection with Dees. Perhaps he could oversee the investigation as well without taxing himself too greatly. It still seemed odd to the immortal that the sedative had reacted so badly in his system. There was something else at hand and Jeremiah was behind it. Not that the boy would confess, but Dwight decided then and there to demand that any blood he received here be from Ceridwen's hand only. The boy was not to be trusted, even by his own standards.


End file.
